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BULLDOG CARNEY 


W. A. FRASER 




BULLDOG CARNEY 


BY 


W. A. FRASER ' 

AUTHOR OP "THE THREE SAPPHIRES,” “MOOSWA AND 
OTHERS,” “THE LONE FURROW,” 
“THOROUGHBREDS,” ETC. 


NEW 



GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 

(url'H * 



Copyright, 1919 , 

By George H. Doran Company 


itr 19 !9ia * 



Copyright, 1919, by Street & Smith Corporation 
Printed in the United States of America 


©C1.A529883 

Recorded* 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I Bulldog Carney .. 9 

II Bulldog Carney’s Alibz ...... 60 

III Owners Up.89 

IV The Gold Wolf.152 

V Seven Blue Doves.197 

VI Evil Spirits ..260 


v 








BULLDOG CARNEY 




/ 




































































BULLDOG CARNEY 


i 

BULLDOG CARNEY 

I’ve thought it over many ways and I’m going to 
tell this story as it happened, for I believe the reader 
will feel he is getting a true picture of things as 
they were but will not be again. A little padding 
up of the love interest, a little spilling of blood, 
would, perhaps, make it stronger technically, but 
would it lessen his faith that the curious thing hap¬ 
pened? It’s beyond me to know—I write it as it 
was. 

To begin at the beginning, Cameron was peeved. 
He was rather a diffident chap, never merging har¬ 
moniously into the western atmosphere; what saved 
him from rude knocks was the fact that he was lean 
of speech. He stood on the board sidewalk in front 
of the Alberta Hotel and gazed dejectedly across 
a trench of black mud that represented the main 
street. He hated the sight of squalid, ramshackle 
Edmonton, but still more did he dislike the turmoil 
that was within the hotel. 

9 


10 BULLDOG CARNEY 

A lean-faced man, with small piercing gray eyes, 
had ridden his buckskin cayuse into the bar and was 
buying. Nagel’s furtrading men, topping off their 
spree in town before the long trip to Great Slave 
Lake, were enthusiastically, vociferously naming 
their tipple. A freighter, Billy the Piper, was play¬ 
ing the “Arkansaw Traveller” on a tin whistle. 

When the gray-eyed man on the buckskin pushed 
his way into the bar, the whistle had almost clattered 
to the floor from the piper’s hand; then he gasped, 
so low that no one heard him, “By cripes I Bulldog 
Carney 1” There was apprehension trembling in 
his hushed voice. Well he knew that if he had 
clarioned the name something would have happened 
Billy the Piper. A quick furtive look darting over 
the faces of his companions told him that no one 
else had recognized the horseman. 

Outside, Cameron, irritated by the rasping tin 
whistle groaned, “My God! a land of bums!” 
Three days he had waited to pick up a man to 
replace a member of his gang down at Fort Victor 
who had taken a sudden chill through intercepting a 
plug of cold lead. 

Diagonally across the lane of ooze two men waded 
and clambered to the board sidewalk just beside 
Cameron to stamp the muck from their boots. One 
of the two, Cayuse Gray, spoke: 

“This feller’ll pull his freight with you, boss, if 
terms is right; he’s a hell of a worker.” 

Half turning, Cameron’s Scotch eyes took keen 
cognizance of the “feller”: a shudder twitched his 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


11 


shoulders. He had never seen a more wolfish face 
set atop a man’s neck. It was a sinister face; not 
the thin, vulpine sneak visage of a thief, but lower¬ 
ing; black sullen eyes peered boldly up from under 
shaggy brows that almost met a mop of black hair, 
the forehead was so low. It was a hungry face, 
as if its owner had a standing account against the 
world. But Cameron wanted a strong worker, and 
his business instinct found strength and endurance in 
that heavy-shouldered frame, and strong, wide-set 
legs. 

“What’s your name?” he asked. 

“Jack Wolf,” the man answered. 

The questioner shivered; it was as if the speaker 
had named the thought that was in his mind. 

Cayuse Gray tongued a chew of tobacco into his 
cheek, spat, and added, “Jack the Wolf is what he 
gets most oftenest.” 

“From damn broncho-headed fools,” Wolf re¬ 
torted angrily. 

At that instant a strangling Salvation Army band 
tramped around the corner into Jasper Avenue, and, 
forming a circle, cut loose with brass and tambourine. 
As the wail from the instruments went up the men 
in the bar, led by Billy the Piper, swarmed out. 

A half-breed roared out a profane parody on the 
Salvation hymn:— 

“There are flies on you, and there’re flies on 
me, 

But there ain’t no flies on Je-e-e-sus.” 


12 BULLDOG CARNEY 

This crude humor appealed to the men who had 
issued from the bar; they shouted in delight. 

A girl who had started forward with her tam¬ 
bourine to collect stood aghast at the profanity, her 
blue eyes wide in horror. 

The breed broke into a drunken laugh: “That’s 
damn fine new songs for de Army bums, Miss,” he 
jeered. 

The buckskin cayuse, whose mouse-colored muzzle 
had been sticking through the door, now pushed to 
the sidewalk, and his rider, stooping his lithe figure, 
took the right ear of the breed in lean bony fingers 
with a grip that suggested he was squeezing a lemon. 
“You dirty swine!” he snarled; “you’re insulting 
the two greatest things on earth—God and a woman. 
Apologize, you hound!” 

Probably the breed would have capitulated read¬ 
ily, but his river-mates’ ears were not in a death 
grip, and they were bellicose with bad liquor. There 
was an angry yell of defiance; events moved with 
alacrity. Profanity, the passionate profanity of 
anger, smote the air; a beer bottle hurtled through 
the open door, missed its mark,—the man on the 
buckskin,—but, end on, found a bull’s-eye between 
the Wolf’s shoulder blades, and that gentleman dove 
parabolically into the black mud of Jasper Avenue. 

A silence smote the Salvation Army band. Like 
the Arab it folded its instruments and stole away. 

A Mounted Policeman, attracted by the clamour, 
reined his horse to the sidewalk to quiet with a few 
words of admonition this bar-room row. He slipped 


BULLDOG CABNEY 


13 


from the saddle; but at the second step forward he 
checked as the thin face of the horseman turned and 
the steel-gray eyes met his own. “Get down off 
that cayuse, Bulldog Carney,—I want you!” he com¬ 
manded in sharp clicking tones. 

Happenings followed this. There was the bark 
of a 6-gun, a flash, the Policeman’s horse jerked his 
head spasmodically, a little jet of red spurted from 
his forehead, and he collapsed, his knees burrowing 
into the black mud and as the buckskin cleared the 
sidewalk in a leap, the half-breed, two steel-like 
fingers in his shirt band, was swung behind the rider. 

With a spring like a panther the policeman 
reached his fallen horse, but as he swung his gun 
from its holster he held it poised silent; to shoot 
was to kill the breed. 

Fifty yards down the street Carney dumped his 
burden into a deep puddle, and with a ringing cry 
of defiance sped away. Half-a-dozen guns were 
out and barking vainly after the escaping man. 

Carney cut down the bush-road that wound its 
sinuous way to the river flat, some two hundred 
feet below the town level. The ferry, swinging from 
the steel hawser, that stretched across the river, 
was snuggling the bank. 

“Some luck,” the rider of the buckskin chuckled. 
To the ferryman he said in a crisp voice: “Cut 
her out; I’m in a hurry!” 

The ferryman grinned. “For one passenger, eh? 
Might you happen to be the Gov’nor General, by any 
chanct?” 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


14 

Carney’s handy gun held its ominous eye on the 
boatman, and its owner answered, “I happen to be 
a man in a hell of a hurry. If you want to travel 
with me get busy.” 

The thin lips of the speaker had puckered till 
they resembled a slit in a dried orange. The small 
gray eyes were barely discernible between the half- 
closed lids; there was something devilish compell¬ 
ing in that lean parchment face; it told of demoniac 
concentration in the brain behind. 

The ferryman knew. With a pole he swung the 
stern of the flat barge down stream, the iron pulleys 
on the cable whined a screeching protest, the haw¬ 
sers creaked, the swift current wedged against the 
tangented side of the ferry, and swiftly Bulldog 
Carney and his buckskin were shot across the muddy 
old Saskatchewan. 

On the other side he handed the boatman a flve- 
dollar bill, and with a grim smile said: “Take a 
little stroll with me to the top of the hill; there’s 
some drunken bums across there whose company I 
don’t want.” 

At the top of the south bank Carney mounted his 
buckskin and melted away into the poplar-covered 
landscape; stepped out of the story for the time 
being. 

Back at the Alberta the general assembly was 
rearranging itself. The Mounted Policeman, now 
set afoot by the death of his horse, had hurried 
down to the barracks to report; possibly to follow 
up Carney’s trail with a new mount. 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


15 


The half-breed had come back from the puddle 
a thing of black ooze and profanity. 

Jack the Wolf, having dug the mud from his eyes, 
and ears, and neck band, was in the hotel making 
terms with Cameron for the summer’s work at Fort 
Victor. 

Billy the Piper was revealing intimate history of 
Bulldog Carney. From said narrative it appeared 
that Bulldog was as humorous a bandit as ever slit 
a throat. Billy had freighted whisky for Carney 
when that gentleman was king of the booze runners. 

“Why didn’t you spill the beans, Billy?” Nagel 
queried; “there’s a thousand on Carney’s head all 
the time. We’d ’ve tied him horn and hoof and 
copped the dough.” 

“Dif’rent here,” the Piper growled; “I’ve saw a 
man flick his gun and pot at Carney when Bulldog 
told him to throw up his hands, and all that cuss 
did was laugh and thrown his own gun up coverin’ 
the other broncho; but it was enough—the other 
guy’s hands went up too quick. If I’d set the pack 
on him, havin’ so to speak no just cause, well, Nagel, 
you’d been lookin’ round for another freighter. 
He’s the queerest cuss I ever stacked up agen. It 
kinder seems as if jokes is his religion; an’ when 
he’s out to play he’s plumb hostile. Don’t monkey 
none with his game, is my advice to you fellers.” 

Nagel stepped to the door, thrust his swarthy face 
through it, and, seeing that the policeman had gone, 
came back to the bar and said: “Boys, the drinks 
is on me cause I see a man, a real man.” 


16 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


He poured whisky into a glass and waited with it 
held high till the others had done likewise; then he 
said in a voice that vibrated with admiration: 

“Here’s to Bulldog Carney! Gad, I love a man! 
When that damn trooper calls him, what does he 
do? You or me would ’ve quit cold or plugged 
Mister Khaki-jacket—we’d had to. Not so Bull¬ 
dog. He thinks with his nut, and both hands, and 
both feet; I don’t need to tell you boys what hap¬ 
pened; you see it, and it were done pretty. Here’s 
to Bulldog Carney!” Nagel held his hand out to 
the Piper: “Shake, Billy. If you’d give that cuss 
away I’d’ve kicked you into kingdom come, knowin’ 
him as I do now.” 

The population of Fort Victor, drawing the color 
line, was four people: the Hudson’s Bay Factor, a 
missionary minister and his wife, and a school 
teacher, Lucy Black. Half-breeds and Indians came 
and went, constituting a floating population; Cam- 
aron and his men were temporary citizens. 

Lucy Black was lathy of construction, several 
years past her girlhood, and not an animated girl. 
She was a professional religionist. If there were 
seeming voids in her life they were filled with this 
dominating passion of moral reclamation; if she 
worked without enthusiasm she made up for it in 
insistent persistence. It was as if a diluted strain 
of the old Inquisition had percolated down through 
the blood of centuries and found a subdued existence 
in this pale-haired, blue-eyed woman. 



BULLDOG CARNEY 


17 

When Cameron brought Jack the Wolf to Fort 
Victor it was evident to the little teacher that he was 
morally an Augean stable: a man who wandered in 
mental darkness; his soul was dying for want of 
spiritual nourishment. 

On the seventy-mile ride in the Red River buck- 
board from Edmonton to Fort Victor the morose 
wolf had punctuated every remark with virile oaths, 
their original angularity suggesting that his medita¬ 
tive moments were spent in coining appropriate ex¬ 
pressions for his perfervid view of life. Twice 
Cameron’s blood had surged hot as the Wolf, at 
some trifling perversity of the horses, had struck 
viciously. 

Perhaps it was the very soullessness of the Wolf 
that roused the religious fanaticism of the little 
school teacher; or perhaps it was that strange con¬ 
trariness in nature that causes the widely divergent 
to lean eachotherward. At any rate a miracle grew 
in Fort Victor. Jack the Wolf and the little teacher 
strolled together in the evening as the great sun 
swept down over the rolling prairie to the west; and 
sometimes the full-faced moon, topping the poplar 
bluffs to the east, found Jack slouching at Lucy’s 
feet while she, sitting on a camp stool, talked Bible 
to him. 

At first Cameron rubbed his eyes as if his Scotch 
vision had somehow gone agley; but, gradually, 
whatever incongruity had manifested at first died 
away. 

As a worker Wolf was wonderful; his thirst for 


18 BULLDOG CARNEY 

toil was like his thirst for moral betterment—in¬ 
satiable. The missionary in a chat with Cameron 
explained it very succinctly: “Wolf, like many other 
Westerners, had never had a chance to know the 
difference between right and wrong; but the One 
who missed not the sparrow’s fall had led him to 
the port of salvation, Fort Victor—Glory to God! 
The poor fellow’s very wickedness was but the re¬ 
sult of neglect. Lucy was the worker in the Lord’s 
vineyard who had been chosen to lead this man into 
a better life. 

It did seem very simple, very all right. Tough 
characters were always being saved all over the 
world—regenerated, metamorphosed, and who was 
Jack the Wolf that he should be excluded from sal¬ 
vation. 

At any rate Cameron’s survey gang, vitalized by 
the abnormal energy of Wolf, became a high- 
powered machine. 

The half-breeds, when couraged by bad liquor, 
shed their religion and became barbaric, vulgarly 
vicious. The missionary had always waited until 
this condition had passed, then remonstrance and a 
gift of bacon with, perhaps, a bag of flour, had 
brought repentance. This method Jack the Wolf 
declared was all wrong; the breeds were like train- 
dogs, he affirmed, and should be taught respect for 
God’s agents in a proper muscular manner. So the 
first time three French half-breeds, enthusiastically 
drunk, invaded the little log schoolhouse and de¬ 
clared school was out, sending the teacher home with 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


19 


tears of shame in her blue eyes, Jack reestablished 
the dignity of the church by generously walloping 
the three backsliders. 

It is wonderful how the solitude of waste places 
will blossom the most ordinary woman into a flower 
of delight to the masculine eye; and the lean, anae¬ 
mic, scrawny-haired school teacher had held as ad¬ 
mirers all of Cameron’s gang, and one Sergeant 
Heath of the Mounted Police whom she had known 
in the Klondike, and who had lately come to Edmon¬ 
ton. With her negative nature she had appreciated 
them pretty much equally; but when the business of 
salvaging this prairie derelict came to hand the 
others were practically ignored. 

For two months Fort Victor was thus; the Wolf 
always the willing worker and well on the way, 
seemingly, to redemption. 

Cameron’s foreman, Bill Slade, a much-whiskered, 
wise old man, was the only one of little faith. Once 
he said to Cameron: 

“I don’t like it none too much; it takes no end of 
worry to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear; Jack 
has blossomed too quick; he’s a booze fighter, and 
that kind always laps up mental stimulants to keep 
the blue devils away.” 

“You’re doing the lad an injustice, I think,” Cam¬ 
eron said. “I was prejudiced myself at first.” 

Slade pulled a heavy hand three times down his 
big beard, spat a shaft of tobacco juice, took his hat 
off, straightened out a couole of dents in it, and put 
it back on his head: 


so 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


“You best stick to that prejudice feeling, Boss— 
first guesses about a feller most gener’ly pans out 
pretty fair. And I’d keep an eye kinder skinned if 
you have any fuss with Jack; I see him look at you 
once or twice when you corrected his way of doin’ 
things.” 

Cameron laughed. 

“ ’Tain’t no laughin’ matter, Boss. When a fel¬ 
ler’s been used to cussin’ like hell he can’t keep 
healthy bottlin’ it up. And all that dirtiness that’s 
in the Wolf ’ll bust out some day same’s you touched 
a match to a tin of powder; he’ll throw back.” 

“There’s nobody to worry about except the little 
school teacher,” Cameron said meditatively. 

This time it was Slade who chuckled. “The school- 
mam’s as safe as houses. She ain’t got a pint of red 
blood in ’em blue veins of hers, ’tain’t nothin’ but 
vinegar. Jack’s just tryin’ to sober up on her re¬ 
ligion, that’s all; it kind of makes him forget horse 
stealin’ an’ such while he makes a stake workin’ 
here.” 

Then one morning Jack had passed into peri¬ 
helion. 

Cameron took his double-barreled shot gun, mean¬ 
ing to pick up some prairie chicken while he was out 
looking over his men’s work. As he passed the 
shack where his men bunked he noticed the door 
open. This was careless, for train dogs were always 
prowling about for just such a chance for loot. He 
stepped through the door and took a peep into the 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


21 


other room. There sat the Wolf at a pine table 
playing solitaire. 

“What’s the matter?” the Scotchman asked. 

“I’ve quit,” the Wolf answered surlily. 

“Quit?” Cameron queried. “The gang can’t 
carry on without a chain man.” 

“I don’t care a damn. It don’t make no dif’rence 
to me. I’m sick of that tough bunch—swearin’ and 
cussin’, and tellin’ smutty stories all day; a man 
can’t keep decent in that outfit.” 

“Ma God!” Startled by this, Cameron harked 
back to his most expressive Scotch. 

“You needn’t swear ’bout it, Boss; you yourself 
ain’t never give me no square deal; you’ve treated 
me like a breed.” 

This palpable lie fired Cameron’s Scotch blood; 
also the malignant look that Slade had seen was 
now in the wolfish eyes. It was a murder look, en¬ 
hanced by the hypocritical attitude Jack had taken. 

“You’re a scoundrel!” Cameron blurted; “I 
wouldn’t keep you on the work. The sooner Fort 
Victor is shut of you the better for all hands, espe¬ 
cially the women folks. You’re a scoundrel.” 

Jack sprang to his feet; his hand went back to a 
hip pocket; but his blazing wolfish eyes were look¬ 
ing into the muzzle of the double-barrel gun that 
Cameron had swung straight from his hip, both 
fingers on the triggers. 

“Put your hands flat on the table, you black¬ 
guard,” Cameron commanded. “If I weren’t a 
married man I’d blow the top of your head off; 


22 BULLDOG CARNEY 

you’re no good on earth; you’d be better dead, but 
my wife would worry because I did the deed.” 

The Wolf’s empty hand had come forward and 
was placed, palm downward, on the table. 

“Now, you hound, you’re just a bluffer. I’ll show 
you what I think of you. I’m going to turn my back, 
walk out, and send a breed up to Fort Saskatchewan 
for a policeman to gather you in.” 

Cameron dropped the muzzle of his gun, turned 
on his heel and started out. 

“Come back and settle with me,” the Wolf de¬ 
manded. 

“I’ll settle with you in jail, you blackguard!” 
Cameron threw over his shoulder, stalking on. 

Plodding along, not without nervous twitchings of 
apprehension, the Scotchman heard behind him the 
voice of the Wolf saying. “Don’t do that, Mr. 
Cameron; I flew off the handle and so did you, but 
I didn’t mean nothin’.” 

Cameron, ignoring the Wolf’s plea, went along 
to his shack and wrote a note, the ugly visage of the 
Wolf hovering at the open door. He was humbled, 
beaten. Gun-play in Montana, where the Wolf had 
left a bad record, was one thing, but with a cordon 
of Mounted Police between him and the border it 
was a different matter; also he was wanted for a 
more serious crime than a threat to shoot, and once 
in the toils this might crop up. So he pleaded. But 
Cameron was obdurate; the Wolf had no right to 
stick up his work and quit at a moment’s notice. 

Then Jack had an inspiration. He brought Lucy 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


23 


Black. Like woman of all time her faith having 
been given she stood pat, a flush rouging her 
bleached cheeks as, earnest in her mission, she 
pleaded for the “wayward boy,” as she euphemisti¬ 
cally designated this coyote. Cameron was to let 
him go to lead the better life; thrown into the pen 
of the police barracks, among bad characters, he 
would become contaminated. The police had al¬ 
ways persecuted her Jack. 

Cameron mentally exclaimed again, “Ma God!” 
as he saw tears in the neutral blue-tinted eyes. In¬ 
deed it was time that the Wolf sought a new run¬ 
way. He had a curious Scotch reverence for women, 
and was almost reconciled to the loss of a man over 
the breaking up of this situation. 

Jack was paid the wages due; but at his request 
for a horse to take him back to Edmonton the 
Scotchman laughed. “I’m not making presents of 
horses to-day,” he said; “and I’ll take good care 
that nobody else here is shy a horse when you go, 
Jack. You’ll take the hoof express—it’s good 
enough for you.” 

So the Wolf tramped out of Fort Victor with a 
pack slung over his shoulder; and the next day Ser¬ 
geant Heath swung into town looking very debonaire 
in his khaki, sitting atop the bright blood-bay police 
horse. 

He hunted up Cameron, saying: “You’ve a man 
here that I want—Jack Wolf. They’ve found his 
prospecting partner dead up on the Smoky River, 


24 BULLDOG CARNEY 

with a bullet hole in the back of his head. We want 
Jack at Edmonton to explain.” 

“He’s gone.” 

“Gone! When?” 

“Yesterday.” 

The Sergeant stared helplessly at the Scotchman. 

A light dawned upon Cameron. “Did you, by 
any chance, send word that you were coming?” he 
asked. 

“I’ll be back, mister,” and Heath darted from 
the shack, swung to his saddle, and galloped toward 
the little log school house. 

Cameron waited. In half an hour the Sergeant 
was back, a troubled look in his face. 

“I’ll tell you,” he said dejectedly, “women are 
hell; they ought to be interned when there’s busi¬ 
ness on.” 

“The little school teacher?” 

“The little fool!” 

“You trusted her and wrote you were coming, 
eh?” 

“I did.” 

“Then, my friend, I’m afraid you were the foolish 
one.” 

“How was I to know that rustler had been ‘mak¬ 
ing bad medicine’—had put the evil eye on Lucy? 
Gad, man, she’s plumb locoed; she stuck up for him; 
spun me the most glimmering tale—she’s got a dime 
novel skinned four ways of the pack. According to 
her the police stood in with Bulldog Carney on a 
train holdup, and made this poor innocent lamb the 


BULLDOG CABNEY 


25 


goat. They persecuted him, and he had to flee. 
Now he’s given his heart to God, and has gone away 
to buy a ranch and send for Lucy, where the two of 
them are to live happy ever after.” 

“Ma God!” the Scotchman cried with vehemence. 

“That bean-headed affair in calico gave him five 
hundred she’s pinched up against her chest for 
years.” 

Cameron gasped and stared blankly; even his 
reverent exclamatory standby seemed inadequate. 

“What time yesterday did the Wolf pull out?” 
the Sergeant asked. 

“About three o’clock.” 

“Afoot?” 

“Yes.” 

“He’ll rustle a cayuse the first chance he gets, but 
if he stays afoot he’ll hit Edmonton to-night, seventy 
miles.” 

“To catch the morning train for Calgary,” Cam¬ 
eron suggested. 

“You don’t know the Wolf, Boss; he’s got his 
namesake of the forest skinned to death when it 
comes to covering up his trail—no train for him 
now that he knows I’m on his track; he’ll just touch 
civilization for grub till he makes the border for 
Montana. I’ve got to get him. If you’ll stake me 
to a fill-up of bacon and a chew of oats for the horse 
I’ll eat and pull out.” 

In an hour Sergeant Heath shook hands with 
Cameron saying: “If you’ll just not say a word 
about how that cuss got the message I’ll be much 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


£6 

obliged. It would break me if it dribbled to head¬ 
quarters.” 

Then he rode down the ribbon of roadway that 
wound to the river bed, forded the old Saskatche¬ 
wan that was at its summer depth, mounted the 
south bank and disappeared. 

When Jack the Wolf left Fort Victor he headed 
straight for a little log shack, across the river, where 
Descoign, a French half-breed, lived. The family 
was away berry picking, and Jack twisted a rope 
into an Indian bridle and borrowed a cayuse from 
the log corral. The cayuse was some devil, and 
that evening, thirty miles south, he chewed loose the 
rope hobble on his two front feet, and left the Wolf 
afoot. 

Luck set in against Jack just there, for he found 
no more borrowable horses till he came to where 
the trail forked ten miles short of Fort Saskatche¬ 
wan. To the right, running southwest, lay the well 
beaten trail that passed through Fort Saskatchewan 
to cross the river and on to Edmonton. The trail 
that switched to the left, running southeast, was the 
old, now rarely-used one that stretched away hun¬ 
dreds of miles to Winnipeg. 

The Wolf was a veritable Indian in his slow cun¬ 
ning; a gambler where money was the stake, but 
where his freedom, perhaps his life, was involved 
he could wait, and wait, and play the game more 
than safe. The Winnipeg trail would be deserted— 
Jack knew that; a man could travel it the round of 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


n 

the clock and meet nobody, most like. Seventy miles 
beyond he could leave it, and heading due west, 
strike the Calgary railroad and board a train at 
some small station. No notice would be taken of 
him, for trappers, prospectors, men from distant 
ranches, morose, untalkative men, were always drift¬ 
ing toward the rails, coming up out of the silent soli¬ 
tudes of the wastes, unquestioned and unquestioning. 

The Wolf knew that he would be followed; he 
knew that Sergeant Heath would pull out on his 
trail and follow relentlessly, seeking the glory of 
capturing his man single-handed. That was the 
esprit de corps of these riders of the prairies, and 
Heath was, par excellence y large in conceit. 

A sinister sneer lifted the upper lip of the trailing 
man until his strong teeth glistened like veritable 
wolf fangs. He had full confidence in his ability to 
outguess Sergeant Heath or any other Mounted 
Policeman. 

He had stopped at the fork of the trail long 
enough to light his pipe, looking down the Fort 
Saskatchewan-Edmonton road thinking. He knew 
the old Winnipeg trail ran approximately ten or 
twelve miles east of the railroad south for a hun¬ 
dred miles or more; where it crossed a trail running 
into Red Deer, half-way between Edmonton and 
Calgary, it was about ten miles east of that town. 

He swung his blanket pack to his back and 
stepped blithely along the Edmonton chocolate- 
colored highway muttering: “You red-coated snobs, 
you’re waiting for Jack. A nice baited trap. And 


28 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


behind, herding me in, my brave Sergeant. Well, 
I’m coming.” 

Where there was a matrix of black mud he took 
care to leave a footprint; where there was dust he 
walked in it, in one or the other of the ever persist¬ 
ing two furrow-like paths that had been worn 
through the strong prairie turf by the hammering 
hoofs of two horses abreast, and grinding wheels of 
wagon and buckboard. For two miles he followed 
the trail till he sighted a shack with a man chopping 
in the front yard. Here the Wolf went in and 
begged some matches and a drink of milk; inci¬ 
dentally he asked how far it was to Edmonton. 
Then he went back to the trail—still toward Ed¬ 
monton. The Wolf had plenty of matches, and he 
didn’t need the milk, but the man would tell Sergeant 
Heath when he came along of the one he had seen 
heading for Edmonton. 

For a quarter of a mile Jack walked on the turf 
beside the road, twice putting down a foot in the 
dust to make a print; then he walked on the road 
for a short distance and again took to the turf. He 
saw a rig coming from behind, and popped into a 
cover of poplar bushes until it had passed. Then he 
went back to the road and left prints of his feet in 
the black soft dust, that would indicate that he had 
climbed into a waggon here from behind. This ac¬ 
complished he turned east across the prairie, reach¬ 
ing the old Winnipeg trail, a mile away; then he 
turned south. 

At noon he came to a little lake and ate his bacon 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


29 


raw, not risking the smoke of a fire; then on in that 
tireless Indian plod—toes in, and head hung for¬ 
ward, that is so easy on the working joints—hour 
after hour; it was not a walk, it was more like the 
dog-trot of a cayuse, easy springing short steps, al¬ 
ways on the balls of his wide strong feet. 

At five he ate again, then on. He travelled till 
midnight, the shadowy gloom having blurred his 
path at ten o’clock. Then he slept in a thick clump 
of saskatoon bushes. 

At three it was daylight, and screened as he was 
and thirsting for his drink of hot tea, he built a 
small fire and brewed the inspiring beverage. On 
forked sticks he broiled some bacon; then on again. 

All day he travelled. In the afternoon elation 
began to creep into his veins; he was well past Ed¬ 
monton now. At night he would take the dipper on 
his right hand and cut across the prairie straight 
west; by morning he would reach steel; the train 
leaving Edmonton would come along about ten, and 
he would be in Calgary that night. Then he could 
go east, or west, or south to the Montana border by 
rail. Heath would go on to Edmonton; the police 
would spend two or three days searching all the 
shacks and Indian and half-breed camps, and they 
would watch the daily outgoing train. 

There was one chance that they might wire Cal¬ 
gary to look out for him; but there was no course 
open without some risk of capture; he was up against 
that possibility. It was a gamble, and he was play¬ 
ing his hand the best he knew how. Even approach- 


30 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


ing Calgary he would swing from the train on some 
grade, and work his way into town at night to a 
shack where Montana Dick lived. Dick would 
know what was doing. 

Toward evening the trail gradually swung to the 
east skirting muskeg country. At first the Wolf took 
little notice of the angle of detour; he was thankful 
he followed a trail, for trails never led one into im¬ 
passable country; the muskeg would run out and the 
trail swing west again. But for two hours he 
plugged along, quickening his pace, for he realized 
now that he was covering miles which had to be 
made up when he swung west again. 

Perhaps it was the depressing continuance of the 
desolate muskeg through which the shadowy figures 
of startled hares darted that cast the tiring man 
into foreboding. Into his furtive mind crept a sus¬ 
picion that he was being trailed. So insidiously had 
this dread birthed that at first it was simply worry, 
a feeling as if the tremendous void of the prairie 
was closing in on him, that now and then a white 
boulder ahead was a crouching wolf. He shivered, 
shook his wide shoulders and cursed. It was that 
he was tiring, perhaps. 

Then suddenly the thing took form, mental form 
-—something was on his trail. This primitive crea¬ 
ture was like an Indian—gifted with the sixth sense 
that knows when somebody is coming though he may 
be a day’s march away; the mental wireless that 
animals possess. He tried to laugh it off; to dissi- 


BULLDOG CARNEY 31 

pate the unrest with blasphemy; but it wouldn’t 
down. 

The prairie was like a huge platter, everything 
stood out against the luminous evening sky like the 
sails of a ship at sea. If it were Heath trailing, and 
that man saw him, he would never reach the rail¬ 
road. His footprints lay along the trail, for it was 
hard going on the heavily-grassed turf. To cut 
across the muskeg that stretched for miles would 
trap him. In the morning light the Sergeant would 
discover that his tracks had disappeared, and would 
know just where he had gone. Being mounted the 
Sergeant would soon make up for the few hours of 
darkness—would reach the railway and wire down 
the line. 

The Wolf plodded on for half a mile, then he left 
the trail where the ground was rolling, cut east for 
five hundred yards, and circled back. On the top of 
a cut-bank that was fringed with wolf willow he 
crouched to watch. The sun had slipped through 
purple clouds, and dropping below them into a sea 
of greenish-yellow space, had bathed in blood the 
whole mass of tesselated vapour; suddenly outlined 
against this glorious background a horse and man 
silhouetted, the stiff erect seat in the saddle, the 
docked tail of the horse, square cut at the hocks, told 
the watcher that it was a policeman. 

When the rider had passed the Wolf trailed him, 
keeping east of the road where his visibility was low 
against the darkening side of the vast dome. Half 
a mile beyond where the Wolf had turned, the Ser- 


32 BULLDOG CARNEY 

geant stopped, dismounted, and, leading the horse, 
with head low hung searched the trail for the tracks 
that had now disappeared. Approaching night, 
creeping first over the prairie, had blurred it into a 
gigantic rug of sombre hue. The trail was like a 
softened stripe; footprints might be there, merged 
into the pattern till they were indiscernible. 

A small oval lake showed in the edge of the 
muskeg beside the trail, its sides festooned by strong¬ 
growing blue-joint, wild oats, wolf willow, saskatoon 
bushes, and silver-leafed poplar. Ducks, startled 
from their nests, floating nests built of interwoven 
rush leaves and grass, rose in circling flights, utter¬ 
ing plaintive rebukes. Three giant sandhill cranes 
flopped their sail-like wings, folded their long spin¬ 
dle shanks straight out behind, and soared away like 
kites. 

Crouched back beside the trail the Wolf watched 
and waited. He knew what the Sergeant would do; 
having lost the trail of his quarry he would camp 
there, beside good water, tether his horse to the 
picket-pin by the hackamore rope, eat, and sleep till 
daylight, which would come about three o’clock; 
then he would cast about for the Wolf’s tracks, gal¬ 
lop along the southern trail, and when he did not 
pick them up would surmise that Jack had cut across 
the muskeg land; then he would round the southern 
end of the swamp and head for the railway. 

“I must get him,” the Wolf muttered mercilessly; 
“gentle him if I can, if not—get him.” 

He saw the Sergeant unsaddle his horse, picket 


BULLDOG CABNEY 33 

him, and eat a cold meal; this rather than beacon his 
presence by a glimmering fire. 

The Wolf, belly to earth, wormed closer, slither¬ 
ing over the gillardias, crunching their yellow blooms 
beneath his evil body, his revolver held between his 
strong teeth as his grimy paws felt the ground for 
twigs that might crack. 

If the Sergeant would unbuckle his revolver belt* 
and perhaps go down to the water for a drink, or 
even to the horse that was at the far end of the 
picket line, his nose buried deep in the succulent 
wild-pea vine, then the Wolf would rush his man, 
and the Sergeant, disarmed, would throw up his 
hands. 

The Wolf did not want on his head the death of 
a Mounted Policeman, for then the “Redcoats” 
would trail him to all corners of the earth. All his 
life there would be someone on his trail. It was too 
big a price. Even if the murder thought had been 
paramount, in that dim light the first shot meant not 
overmuch. 

So Jack waited. Once the horse threw up his 
head, cocked his ears fretfully, and stood like a 
bronze statue; then he blew a breath of discontent 
through his spread nostrils, and again buried his 
muzzle in the pea vine and sweet-grass. 

Heath had seen this movement of the horse and 
ceased cutting at the plug of tobacco with which he 
was filling his pipe; he stood up, and searched with 
his eyes the mysterious gloomed prairie. 

The Wolf, flat to earth, scarce breathed. 



34 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


The Sergeant snuffed out the match hidden in his 
cupped hands over the bowl, put the pipe in his 
pocket, and, revolver in hand, walked in a narrow T 
circle; slowly, stealthily, stopping every few feet to 
listen; not daring to go too far lest the man he was 
after might be hidden somewhere and cut out his 
horse. He passed within ten feet of where the Wolf 
lay, just a gray mound against the gray turf. 

The Sergeant went back to his blanket and with 
his saddle for a pillow lay down, the tiny glow of 
his pipe showing the Wolf that he smoked. He had 
not removed his pistol belt. 

The Wolf lying there commenced to think grimly 
how easy it would be to kill the policeman as he 
slept; to wiggle, snake-like to within a few feet and 
then the shot. But killing was a losing game, the 
blundering trick of a man who easily lost control; 
the absolutely last resort when a man was cornered 
beyond escape and saw a long term at Stony Moun¬ 
tain ahead of him, or the gallows. The Wolf would 
wait till all the advantage was with him. Besides, 
the horse was like a watch-dog. The Wolf was 
down wind from them now, but if he moved enough 
to rouse the horse, or the wind shifted—no, he would 
wait. In the morning the Sergeant, less wary in the 
daylight, might give him his chance. 

Fortunately it was late in the summer and that 
terrible pest, the mosquito, had run his course. 

The Wolf slipped back a few yards deeper into 
the scrub, and, tired, slept. He knew that at the 
first wash of gray in the eastern sky the ducks would 



BULLDOG CARNEY 


35 


wake him. He slept like an animal, scarce slipping 
from consciousness; a stamp of the horse’s hoof on 
the sounding turf bringing him wide awake. Once a. 
gopher raced across his legs, and he all but sprang 
to his feet thinking the Sergeant had grappled with 
him. Again a great horned owl at a twist of Jack’s 
head as he dreamed, swooped silently and struck, 
thinking it a hare. 

Brought out of his sleep by the myriad noises of 
the waterfowl the Wolf knew that night was past, 
and the dice of chance were about to be thrown. 
He crept back to where the Sergeant was in full 
view, the horse, his sides ballooned by the great feed 
of sweet-pea vine, lay at rest, his muzzle on the 
earth, his drooped ears showing that he slept. 

Waked by the harsh cry of a loon that swept by 
rending the air with his death-like scream, the Ser¬ 
geant sat bolt upright and rubbed his eyes sleepily. 
He rose, stretched his arms above his head, and 
stood for a minute looking off toward the eastern 
sky that was now taking on a rose tint. The horse, 
with a little snort, canted to his feet and sniffed 
toward the water; the Sergeant pulled the picket- 
pin and led him to the lake for a drink. 

Hungrily the Wolf looked at the carbine that lay 
across the saddle, but the Sergeant watered his horse 
without passing behind the bushes. It was a chance; 
but still the Wolf waited, thinking, “I want an ace 
in the hole when I play this hand.” 

Sergeant Heath slipped the picket-pin back into 
the turf, saddled his horse, and stood mentally de- 


36 


BULLDOG CARNEY; 


bating something. Evidently the something had to 
do with Jack’s whereabouts, for Heath next climbed 
a short distance up a poplar, and with his field 
glasses scanned the surrounding prairie. This 
seemed to satisfy him; he dropped back to earth, 
gathered some dry poplar branches and built a little 
fire; hanging by a forked stick he drove in the 
ground his copper tea pail half full of water. 

Then the thing the Wolf had half expectantly 
waited for happened. The Sergeant took off his 
revolver belt, his khaki coat, rolled up the sleeves 
of his gray flannel shirt, turned down its collar, took 
a piece of soap and a towel from the roll of his 
blanket and went to the water to wash away the black 
dust of the prairie trail that was thick and heavy on 
his face and in his hair. Eyes and ears full of suds, 
splashing and blowing water, the noise of the Wolf’s 
rapid creep to the fire was unheard. 

When the Sergeant, leisurely drying his face on 
the towel, stood up and turned about he was looking 
into the yawning maw of his own heavy police re¬ 
volver, and the Wolf was saying: “Come here be¬ 
side the fire and strip to the buff—I want them duds. 
There won’t nothin’ happen you unless you get hos¬ 
tile, then you’ll get yours too damn quick. Just do 
as you’re told and don’t make no fool play; I’m in 
a hurry.” 

Of course the Sergeant, not being an imbecile, 
obeyed. 

“Now get up in that tree and stay there while I 
dress,” the Wolf ordered. In three minutes he was 


BULLDOG CARNEY 37 

arrayed in the habiliments of Sergeant Heath; then 
he said, “Come down and put on my shirt.” 

In the pocket of the khaki coat that the Wolf now 
wore were a pair of steel handcuffs; he tossed them 
to the man in the shirt commanding, “Click these 
on.” 

“I say,” the Sergeant expostulated, “can’t I have 
the pants and the coat and your boots?” 

The Wolf sneered: “Dif’rent here my bounder; 
I got to make a get-away. I’ll tell you what I’ll do 
—I’ll give you your choice of three ways: I’ll stake 
you to the clothes, bind and gag you; or I’ll rip one 
of these 44 plugs through you; or I’ll let you run 
foot loose with a shirt on your back; I reckon you 
won’t go far on this wire grass in bare feet.” 

“I don’t walk on my pants.” 

“That’s just what you would do; the pants and 
coat would cut up into about four pairs of moc¬ 
casins ; they’d be as good as duffel cloth.” 

“I’ll starve.” 

“That’s your look-out. You’d lie awake nights 
worrying about where Jack Wolf would get a din¬ 
ner—I guess not. I ought to shoot you. The damn 
police are nothin’ but a lot of dirty dogs anyway. 
Get busy and cook grub for two—bacon and tea, 
while I sit here holdin’ this gun on you.” 

The Sergeant was a grotesque figure cooking with 
the manacles on his wrists, and clad only in a shirt. 

When they had eaten the Wolf bridled the horse, 
curled up the picket line and tied it to the saddle 


38 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


horn, rolled the blanket and with the carbine 
strapped it to the saddle, also his own blanket. 

“I’m goin’ to grubstake you,” he said, “leave you 
rations for three days; that’s more than you’d do 
for me. I’ll turn your horse loose near steel, I ain’t 
horse stealin’, myself—I’m only borrowin’.” 

When he was ready to mount a thought struck the 
Wolf. It could hardly be pity for the forlorn con¬ 
dition of Heath; it must have been cunning—a play 
against the off chance of the Sergeant being picked 
up by somebody that day. He said: 

“You fellers in the force pull a gag that you keep 
your word, don’t you?” 

“We try to.” 

“I’ll give you another chance, then. I don’t want 
to see nobody put in a hole when there ain’t no call 
for it. If you give me your word, on the honor of 
a Mounted Policeman, swear it, that you’ll give me 
four days’ start before you squeal I’ll stake you to 
the clothes and boots; then you can get out in two 
days and be none the worse.” 

“I’ll see you in hell first. A Mounted Policeman 
doesn’t compromise with a horse thief—with a 
skunk who steals a working girl’s money.” 

“You’ll keep palaverin’ till I blow the top of your 
head off,” the Wolf snarled. “You’ll look sweet 
trampin’ in to some town in about a week askin’ 
somebody to file off the handcuffs Jack the Wolf 
snapped on you, won’t you?” 

“I won’t get any place in a week with these hand- 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


39 


cuffs on,” the Sergeant objected; “even if a pack of 
coyotes tackled me I couldn’t protect myself.” 

The Wolf pondered this. If he could get away 
without it he didn’t want the death of a man on his 
hands—there was nothing in it. So he unlocked the 
handcuffs, dangled them in his fingers debatingly, 
and then threw them far out into the bushes, say¬ 
ing, with a leer; “I might get stuck up by some¬ 
body, and if they clamped these on to me it would 
make a get-away harder.” 

“Give me some matches,” pleaded the Sergeant. 

With this request the Wolf complied saying, “I 
don’t want to do nothin’ mean unless it helps me out 
of a hole.” 

Then Jack swung to the saddle and continued on 
the trail. For four miles he rode, wondering at the 
persistence of the muskeg. But now he had a horse 
and twenty-four hours ahead before train time; he 
should worry. 

Another four miles, and to the south he could 
see a line of low rolling hills that meant the end of 
the swamps. Even where he rode the prairie rose 
and fell, the trail dipping into hollows, on its rise 
to sweep over higher land. Perhaps some of these 
ridges ran right through the muskegs; but there was 
no hurry. 

Suddenly as the Wolf breasted an upland he saw 
a man leisurely cinching a saddle on a buckskin 
horse. 

“Hell!” the Wolf growled as he swung his mount; 


40 BULLDOG CARNEY 

“that’s the buckskin that I see at the Alberta; that’s 
Bulldog; I don’t want no mix-up with him.” 

He clattered down to the hollow he had left, and 
raced for the hiding screen of the bushed muskeg. 
He was almost certain Carney had not seen him, 
for the other had given no sign; he would wait In 
the cover until Carney had gone; perhaps he could 
keep right on across the bad lands, for his horse, as 
yet, sunk but hoof deep. He drew rein In thick 
cover and waited. 

Suddenly the horse threw up his head, curved his 
neck backward, cocked his ears and whinnied. The 
Wolf could hear a splashing, sucking sound of hoofs 
back on the tell-tale trail he had left. 

With a curse he drove his spurs into the horse’s 
flanks, and the startled animal sprang from the cut¬ 
ting rowels, the ooze throwing up in a shower. 

A dozen yards and the horse stumbled, almost 
coming to his knees; he recovered at the lash of 
Jack’s quirt, and struggled on; now going half the 
depth of his cannon bones in the yielding muck, he 
was floundering like a drunken man; in ten feet his 
legs went to the knees. 

Quirt and spur drove him a few feet; then he 
lurched heavily, and with a writhing struggle against 
the sucking sands stood trembling; from his spread 
mouth came a scream of terror—he knew. 

And now the Wolf knew. With terrifying dread 
he remembered—he had ridden into the “Lakes of 
the Shifting Sands.” This was the country they 
were in and he had forgotten. The sweat of fear 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


41 


stood out on the low forehead; all the tales that he 
had heard of men who had disappeared from off 
the face of the earth, swallowed up in these quick¬ 
sands, came back to him with numbing force. To 
spring from the horse meant but two or three wal¬ 
lowing strides and then to be sucked down in the 
claiming quicksands. 

The horse’s belly was against the black muck. 
The Wolf had drawn his feet up; he gave a cry for 
help. A voice answered, and twisting his head 
about he saw, twenty yards away, Carney on the 
buckskin. About the man’s thin lips a smile hovered. 
He sneered: 

“You’re up against it. Mister Policeman; what 
name’ll I turn in back at barracks?” 

Jack knew that it was Carney, and that Carney 
might know Heath by sight, so he lied: 

“I’m Sergeant Phillips; for God’s sake help me 
out.” 

Bulldog sneered. “Why should I—God doesn’t 
love a sneaking police hound.” 

The Wolf pleaded, for his horse was gradually 
sinking; his struggles now stilled for the beast knew 
that he was doomed. 

“All right,” Carney said suddenly. “One condi¬ 
tion—never mind, I’ll save you first—there isn’t too 
much time. Now break your gun, empty the cart¬ 
ridges out and drop it back into the holster,” he 
commanded. “Unsling your picket line, fasten it 
under your armpits, and if I can get my cow-rope to 
you tie the two together.” 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


42 

He slipped from the saddle and led the horse as 
far out as he dared, seemingly having found firmer 
ground a little to one side. Then taking his cow- 
rope, he worked his way still farther out, placing 
his feet on the tufted grass that stuck up in little 
mounds through the treacherous ooze. Then call¬ 
ing, “Look out!” he swung the rope. The Wolf 
caught it at the first throw and tied his own to it. 
Carney worked his way back, looped the rope over 
the horn, swung to the saddle, and calling, “Flop 
over on your belly—look out!” he started his horse, 
veritably towing the Wolf to safe ground. 

The rope slacked; the Wolf, though half smoth¬ 
ered with muck, drew his revolver and tried to slip 
two cartridges into the cylinder. 

A sharp voice cried, “Stop that, you swine!” and 
raising his eyes he was gazing into Carney’s gun. 
“Come up here on the dry ground,” the latter com¬ 
manded. “Stand there, unbuckle your belt and let 
it drop. Now take ten paces straight ahead.” Car¬ 
ney salvaged the weapon and belt of cartridges. 

“Build a fire, quick!” he next ordered, leaning 
casually against his horse, one hand resting on the 
butt of his revolver. 

He tossed a couple of dry matches to the Wolf 
when the latter had built a little mound of dry pop¬ 
lar twigs and birch bark. 

When the fire was going Carney said: “Peel 
your coat and dry it; stand close to the fire so your 
pants dry too—I want that suit.” 

The Wolf was startled. Was retribution so hot 




BULLDOG CARNEY 


43 


on his trail? Was Carney about to set him afoot 
just as he had set afoot Sergeant Heath? His two 
hundred dollars and Lucy Black’s five hundred were 
in the pocket of that coat also. As he took it ofi he 
turned it upside down, hoping for a chance to slip 
the parcel of money to the ground unnoticed of his 
captor. 

“Throw the jacket here,” Carney commanded; 
“seems to be papers in the pocket.” 

When the coat had been tossed to him, Carney 
sat down on a fallen tree, took from it two packets 
—one of papers, and another wrapped in strong 
paper. He opened the papers, reading them with 
one eye while with the other he watched the man by 
the fire. Presently he sneered: “Say, you’re some 
liar—even for a government hound; your name’s 
not Phillips, it’s Heath. You’re the waster who 
fooled the little girl at Golden. You’re the bounder 
who came down from the Klondike to gather Bull¬ 
dog Carney in; you shot off your mouth all along 
the line that you were going to take him single- 
handed. You bet a man in Edmonton a hundred 
you’d tie him hoof and horn. Well, you lose, for 
Pm going to rope you first, see? Turn you over 
to the Government tied up like a bag of spuds; that’s 
just what Pm going to do, Sergeant Liar. Pm going 
to break you for the sake of that little girl at Golden, 
for she was my friend and Pm Bulldog Carney. 
Soon as that suit is dried a bit you’ll strip and pass 
it over; then you’ll get into my togs and Pm going 
to turn you over to the police as Bulldog Carney. 





44 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


D’you get me, kid?” Carney chuckled. “That’ll 
break you, won’t it, Mister Sergeant Heath? You 
can’t stay in the Force a joke; you’ll never live it 
down if you live to be a thousand—you’ve boasted 
too much.” 

The Wolf had remained silent—waiting. He 
had an advantage if his captor did not know him. 
Now he was frightened; to be turned in at Edmon¬ 
ton by Carney was as bad as being taken by Ser¬ 
geant Heath. 

“You can’t pull that stuff, Carney,” he objected; 
“the minute I tell them who I am and who you 
are they’ll grab you too quick. They’ll know me; 
perhaps some of them’ll know you.” 

A sneering “Ha!” came from between the thin 
lips of the man on the log. “Not where we’re going 
they won’t, Sergeant. I know a little place over on 
the rail”—and he jerked his thumb toward the west 
—“where there’s two policemen that don’t know 
much of anything; they’ve never seen either of us. 
You ain’t been at Edmonton more’n a couple of 
months since you came from the Klondike. But 
they do know that Bulldog Carney is wanted at 
Calgary and that there’s a thousand dollars to the 
man that brings him in.” 

At this the Wolf pricked his ears; he saw light— 
a flood of it. If this thing went through, and he 
was sent on to Calgary as Bulldog Carney, he would 
be turned loose at once as not being the man. The 
police at Calgary had cause to know just what Car- 


BULLDOG CARNEY 45 

ney looked like for he had been in their clutches and 
escaped. 

But Jack must bluff—appear to be the angry Ser¬ 
geant. So he said: “They’ll know me at Calgary, 
and you’ll get hell for this.” 

Now Carney laughed out joyously. “I don’t give 
a damn if they do. Can’t you get it through your 
wooden police head that I just want this little pleas¬ 
antry driven home so that you’re the goat of that 
nanny band, the Mounted Police; then you’ll send 
in your papers and go back to the farm?” 

As Carney talked he had opened the paper packet. 
Now he gave a crisp “Hello! what have we here?” 
as a sheaf of bills appeared. 

The Wolf had been watching for Carney’s eyes 
to leave him for five seconds. One hand rested in 
his trousers pocket. He drew it out and dropped a 
knife, treading it into the sand and ashes. 

“Seven hundred,” Bulldog continued. “Rather a 
tidy sum for a policeman to be toting. Is this police 
money?” 

The Wolf hesitated; it was a delicate situation. 
Jack wanted that money but a slip might ruin his 
escape. If Bulldog suspected that Jack was not a 
policeman he would jump to the conclusion that he 
had killed the owner of the horse and clothes. Also 
Carney would not believe that a policeman on duty 
wandered about with seven hundred in his pocket; 
if Jack claimed it all Carney would say he lied and 
keep it as Government money. 

“Five hundred is Government money I was 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


46 

bringin’ in from a post, and two hundred is my 
own,” he answered. 

“I’ll keep the Government money,” Bulldog said 
crisply; “the Government robbed me of my ranch— 
said I had no title. And I’ll keep yours, too; it’s 
coming to you.” 

“If luck strings with you, Carney, and you get 
away with this dirty trick, what you say’ll make 
good—I’ll have to quit the Force; an’ I want to get 
home down east. Give me a chance; let me have 
my own two hundred.” 

“I think you’re lying—a man in the Force doesn’t 
get two hundred ahead, not honest. But I’ll toss 
you whether I give you one hundred or two,” Car¬ 
ney said, taking a half dollar from his pocket 
“Call!” and he spun it in the air. 

“Heads!” the Wolf cried. 

The coin fell tails up. “Here’s your hundred,” 
and Bulldog passed the bills to their owner. 

“I see here,” he continued, “your order to arrest 
Bulldog Carney. Well, you’ve made good, haven’t 
you. And here’s another for Jack the Wolf; you 
missed him, didn’t you? Where’s he—what’s he 
done lately? He played me a dirty trick once; tipped 
off the police as to where they’d get me. I never 
saw him, but if you could stake me to a sight of the 
Wolf I’d give you this six hundred. He’s the real 
hound that I’ve got a low down grudge against. 
What’s his description—what does he look like?” 

“He’s a tall slim chap—looks like a breed, ’cause 
he’s got nigger blood in him,” the Wolf lied. 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


47 


“I’ll get him some day,” Carney said; “and now 
them duds are about cooked—peel!” 

The Wolf stripped, gray shirt and all. 

“Now step back fifteen paces while I make my 
toilet,” Carney commanded, toying with his 6-gun 
in the way of emphasis. 

In two minutes he was transformed into Sergeant 
Heath of the N. W. M. P., revolver belt and all. 
He threw his own clothes to the Wolf, and lighted 
his pipe. 

When Jack had dressed Carney said: “I saved 
your life, so I don’t want you to make me throw it 
away again. I don’t want a muss when I turn you 
over to the police in the morning. There ain’t much 
chance they’d listen to you if you put up a holler 
that you were Sergeant Heath—they’d laugh at you, 
but if they did make a break at me there’s be shoot¬ 
ing, and you’d sure be plumb in line of a careless 
bullet—see? I’m going to stay close to you till 
you’re on that train.” 

Of course this was just what the Wolf wanted; 
to go down the line as Bulldog Carney, handcuffed 
to a policeman, would be like a passport for Jack 
the Wolf. Nobody would even speak to him—the 
policeman would see to that. 

“You’re dead set on putting this crazy thing 
through, are you?” he asked. 

“You bet I am—I’d rather work this racket than 
go to my own wedding.” 

“Well, so’s you won’t think your damn threat to 
shoot keeps me mum, I’ll just tell you that if you get 


48 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


that far with it I ain’t going to give myself away. 
You’ve called the turn, Carney; I’d be a joke even 
if I only got as far as the first barracks a prisoner. 
If I go in as Bulldog Carney I won’t come out as 
Sergeant Heath—I’ll disappear as Mister Some¬ 
body. I’m sick of the Force anyway. They’ll never 
know what happened Sergeant Heath from me— 
I couldn’t stand the guying. But if I ever stack up 
against you, Carney, I’ll kill you for it.” This last 
was pure bluff—for fear Carney’s suspicions might 
be aroused by the other’s ready compliance. 

Carney scowled; then he laughed, sneering: “I’ve 
heard women talk like that in the dance halls. You 
cook some bacon and tea at that fire—then we’ll pull 
out.” 

As the Wolf knelt beside the fire to blow the 
embers into a blaze he found a chance to slip the 
knife he had buried into his pocket. 

When they had eaten they took the trail, head¬ 
ing south to pass the lower end of the great muskegs. 
Carney rode the buckskin, and the Wolf strode along 
in front, his mind possessed of elation at the pros¬ 
pect of being helped out of the country, and depres¬ 
sion over the loss of his money. Curiously the loss 
of his own one hundred seemed a greater enormity 
than that of the school teacher’s five hundred. That 
money had been easily come by, but he had toiled 
a month for the hundred. What right had Carney 
to steal his labor—to rob a workman. As they 
plugged along mile after mile, a fierce determina¬ 
tion to get the money back took possession of Jack. 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


49 

If he could get it he could get the horse. He would 
fix Bulldog some way so that the latter would not 
stop him. He must have the clothes, too. The 
khaki suit obsessed him; it was a red flag to his hot 
mind. 

They spelled and ate in the early evening; and 
when they started for another hour’s tramp Carney 
tied his cow-rope tightly about the Wolf’s waist, 
saying: “If you’d tried to cut out in these gloomy 
hills I’d be peeved. Just keep that line taut in front 
of the buckskin and there won’t be no argument.” 

In an hour Carney called a halt, saying: “We’ll 
camp by this bit of water, and hit the trail in the 
early morning. We ain’t more than ten miles from 
steel, and we’ll make some place before train time.” 

Carney had both the police picket line and his 
own. He drove a picket in the ground, looped the 
line that was about the Wolf’s waist over it, and 
said. 

“I don’t want to be suspicious of a mate jumping 
me in the dark, so I’ll sleep across this line and 
you’ll keep to the other end of it; if you so much as 
wink at it I guess I’ll wake. I’ve got a bad con¬ 
science and sleep light. We’ll build a fire and you’ll 
keep to the other side of it same’s we were neigh¬ 
bors in a city and didn’t know each other.” 

Twice, as they ate, Carney caught a sullen, vicious 
look in Jack’s eyes. It was as clearly a murder look 
as he had ever seen; and more than once he had 
faced eyes that thirsted for his life. He wondered 
at the psychology of it; it was not like his idea of 


50 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


Sergeant Heath. From what he had been told of 
that policeman he had fancied him a vain, swagger¬ 
ing chap who had had his ego fattened by the three 
stripes on his arm. He determined to take a few 
extra precautions, for he did not wish to lie awake. 

“We’ll turn in,” he said when they had eaten; 
“I’ll hobble you, same’s a shy cayuse, for fear you’d 
walk in your sleep, Sergeant.” 

He bound the Wolf’s ankles, and tied his wrists 
behind his back, saying, as he knotted the rope, 
“What the devil did you do with your handcuffs— 
thought you johnnies always had a pair in your 
pocket?” 

“They were in the saddle holster and went down 
with my horse,” the Wolf lied. 

Carney’s nerves were of steel, his brain worked 
with exquisite precision. When it told him there 
was nothing to fear, that his precautions had made 
all things safe, his mind rested, untortured by jerky 
nerves; so in five minutes he slept. 

The Wolf mastered his weariness and lay awake, 
waiting to carry out the something that had been in 
his mind. Six hundred dollars was a stake to play 
for; also clad once again in the police suit, with the 
buckskin to carry him to the railroad, he could get 
away; money was always a good thing to bribe his 
way through. Never once had he put his hand in 
the pocket where lay the knife he had secreted at 
the time he had changed clothes with Carney, as he 
trailed hour after hour in front of the buckskin. He 
knew that Carney was just the cool-nerved man that 


BULLDOG CARNEY 51 

would sleep—not lie awake through fear over 
nothing. 

In the way of test he shuffled his feet and drew 
from the half-dried grass a rasping sound. It partly 
disturbed the sleeper; he changed the steady rhythm 
of his breathing; he even drew a heavy-sighing 
breath; had he been lying awake watching the Wolf 
he would have stilled his breathing to listen. 

The Wolf waited until the rhythmic breaths of 
the sleeper told that he had lapsed again into the 
deeper sleep. Slowly, silently the Wolf worked his 
hands to the side pocket, drew out the knife and cut 
the cords that bound his wrists. It took time, for 
he worked with caution. Then he waited. The 
buckskin, his nose deep in the grass, blew the pollen 
of the flowered carpet from his nostrils. 

Carney stirred and raised his head. The buck¬ 
skin blew through his nostrils again, ending with a 
luxurious sigh of content; then was heard the clip- 
clip of his strong teeth scything the grass. Carney, 
recognizing what had waked him, turned over and 
slept again. 

Ten minutes, and the Wolf, drawing up his feet 
slowly, silently, sawe^d through the rope on his 
ankles. Then with spread fingers he searched the 
grass for a stone the size of a goose egg, beside 
which he had purposely lain down. When his fin¬ 
gers touched it he unknotted the handkerchief that 
had been part of Carney’s make-up and which was 
now about his neck, and in one corner tied the stone, 
fastening the other end about his wrist. Now he 


52 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


had a slung-shot that with one blow would render 
the other man helpless. 

Then he commenced his crawl. 

A pale, watery, three-quarter moon had climbed 
listlessly up the eastern sky changing the sombre 
prairie into a vast spirit land, draping with ghostly 
garments bush and shrub. 

Purposely Carney had tethered the buckskin down 
wind from where he and the Wolf lay. Jack had 
not read anything out of this action, but Carney 
knew the sensitive wariness of his horse,—the scent 
of the stranger in his nostrils would keep him rest¬ 
less, and any unusual move on the part of the pris¬ 
oner would agitate the buckskin. Also he had only 
pretended to drive the picket pin at some distance 
away; in the dark he had trailed it back and worked 
it into the loose soil at his very feet. This was 
more a move of habitual care than a belief that the 
bound man could work his way, creeping and rolling, 
to the picket-pin, pull it, and get away with the 
horse. 

At the Wolf’s first move the buckskin threw up 
his head, and, with ears cocked forward, studied 
the shifting blurred shadow. Perhaps it was the 
scent of his master’s clothes which the Wolf wore 
that agitated his mind, that cast him to wondering 
whether his master was moving about; or, perhaps 
as animals instinctively have a nervous dread of a 
vicious man he distrusted the stranger; perhaps, in 
the dim uncertain light, his prairie dread came back 
to him and he thought it a wolf that had crept into 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


53 


camp. He took a step forward; then another, shak¬ 
ing his head irritably. A vibration trembled along 
the picket line that now lay across Carney’s foot and 
he stirred restlessly. 

The Wolf flattened himself to earth and snored. 
Five minutes he waited, cursing softly the restless 
horse. Then again he moved, so slowly that even 
the watchful animal scarce detected it. 

He was debating two plans: a swift rush and a 
swing of his slung shot, or the silent approach. The 
former meant inevitably the death of one or the 
other—the crushed skull of Carney, or, if the latter 
were by any chance awake, a bullet through the 
Wolf. He could feel his heart pounding against the 
turf as he scraped along, inch by inch. A bare ten 
feet, and he could put his hand on the butt of Car¬ 
ney’s gun and snatch it from the holster; if he 
missed, then the slung shot. 

The horse, roused, was growing more restless, 
more inquisitive. Sometimes he took an impatient 
snap at the grass with his teeth; but only to throw 
his head up again, take a step forward, shake his 
head, and exhale a whistling breath. 

Now the Wolf had squirmed his body five feet 
forward. Another yard and he could reach the 
pistol; and there was no sign that Carney had 
wakened—just the steady breathing of a sleeping 
man. 

The Wolf lay perfectly still for ten seconds, for 
the buckskin seemingly had quieted; he was stand¬ 
ing, his head low hung, as if he slept on his feet. 


54 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


Carney’s face was toward the creeping man and was 
in shadow. Another yard, and now slowly the Wolf 
gathered his legs under him till he rested like a 
sprinter ready for a spring; his left hand crept for¬ 
ward toward the pistol stock that was within reach; 
the stone-laden handkerchief was twisted about the 
two first fingers of his right. 

Yes, Carney slept. 

As the Wolf’s finger tips slid along the pistol butt 
the wrist was seized in fingers of steel, he was twisted 
almost face to earth, and the butt of Carney’s own 
gun, in the latter’s right hand, clipped him over the 
eye and he slipped into dreamland. When he came 
to workmen were riveting a boiler in the top of his 
head; somebody with an augur was boring a hole in 
his forehead; he had been asleep for ages and had 
wakened in a strange land. He sat up groggily and 
stared vacantly at a man who sat beside a camp fire 
smoking a pipe. Over the camp fire a copper kettle 
hung and a scent of broiling bacon came to his nos¬ 
trils. The man beside the fire took the pipe from his 
mouth and said: “I hoped I had cracked your skull, 
you swine. Where did you pick up that thug trick 
of a stone in the handkerchief? As you are troubled 
with insomnia we’ll hit the trail again.” 

With the picket line around his waist once more 
Jack trudged ahead of the buckskin, in the night 
gloom the shadowy cavalcade cutting a strange, 
weird figure as though a boat were being towed 
across sleeping waters. 

The Wolf, groggy from the blow that had almost 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


55 


cracked his skull, was wobbly on his legs—his feet 
were heavy as though he wore a diver’s leaden boots. 
As he waded through a patch of wild rose the briars 
clung to his legs, and, half dazed he cried out, think¬ 
ing he struggled in the shifting sands. 

“Shut up!” The words clipped from the thin lips 
of the rider behind. 

They dipped into a hollow and the played-out man 
went half to his knees in the morass. A few lurch¬ 
ing steps and overstrained nature broke; he collapsed 
like a jointed doll—he toppled head first into the 
mire and lay there. 

The buckskin plunged forward in the treacherous 
going, and the bag of a man was skidded to firm 
ground by the picket line, where he sat wiping the 
mud from his face, and looking very all in. 

Carney slipped to the ground and stood beside 
his captive. “You’re soft, my bucko—I knew Ser¬ 
geant Heath had a yellow streak,” he sneered; 
“boasters generally have. I guess we’ll rest till 
daylight. I’ve a way of hobbling a bad man that’ll 
hold you this time, I fancy.” 

He drove the picket-pin of the rope that tethered 
the buckskin, and ten feet away he drove the other 
picket pin. He made the Wolf lie on his side and 
fastened him by a wrist to each peg so that one arm 
was behind and one in front. 

Carney chuckled as he surveyed the spread-eagle 
man: “You’ll find some trouble getting out of that, 
my bucko; you can’t get your hands together and 


56 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


you can’t get your teeth at either rope. Now I will 
have a sleep.” 

The Wolf was in a state of half coma; even un¬ 
tethered he probably would have slept like a log; 
and Carney was tired; he, too, slumbered, the soft 
stealing gray of the early morning not bringing him 
back out of the valley of rest till a glint of sunlight 
throwing over the prairie grass touched his eyes, 
and the warmth gradually pushed the lids back. 

He rose, built a fire, and finding water made a 
pot of tea. Then he saddled the buckskin, and un¬ 
tethered the Wolf, saying: “We’ll eat a bite and 
pull out.” 

The rest and sleep had refreshed the Wolf, and 
he plodded on in front of the buckskin feeling that 
though his money was gone his chances of escape 
were good. 

At eight o’clock the square forms of log shacks 
leaning groggily against a sloping hill came into 
view; it was Hobbema; and, swinging a little to the 
left, in an hour they were close to the Post. 

Carney knew where the police shack lay, and 
skirting the town he drew up in front of a log shack, 
an iron-barred window at the end proclaiming it 
was the Barracks. He slipped from the saddle, 
dropped the- rein over his horse’s head, and said 
quietly to the Wolf: “Knock on the door, open it, 
and step inside,” the muzzle of his gun emphasizing 
the command. 

He followed close at the Wolf’s heels, standing 
in the open door as the latter entered. He had ex- 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


57 


pected to see perhaps one, not more than two con¬ 
stables, but at a little square table three men in 
khaki sat eating breakfast. 

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Carney said cheer¬ 
ily; “I’ve brought you a prisoner, Bulldog Carney.” 

The one who sat at table with his back to the 
door turned his head at this; then he sprang to his 
feet, peered into the prisoner’s face and laughed. 

“Bulldog nothing, Sergeant; you’ve bagged the 
Wolf.” 

The speaker thrust his face almost into the 
Wolf’s. “Where’s my uniform—where’s my horse? 
I’ve got you now—set me afoot to starve, would 
you, you damn thief—you murderer! Where’s the 
five hundred dollars you stole from the little teacher 
at Fort Victor?” 

He was trembling with passion; words flew from 
his lips like bullets from a gatling—it was a torrent. 

But fast as the accusation had come, into Carney’s 
quick mind flashed the truth—the speaker was Ser¬ 
geant Heath. The game was up. Still it was amus¬ 
ing. What a devilish droll blunder he had made. 
His hands crept quietly to his two guns, the police 
gun in the belt and his own beneath the khaki coat. 

Also the Wolf knew his game was up. His blood 
surged hot at the thought that Carney’s meddling 
had trapped him. He was caught, but the author of 
his evil luck should not escape. 

“That’s Bulldog Carney!” he cried fiercely; “don’t 
let him get away.” 


58 BULLDOG CARNEY 

Startled, the two constables at the table sprang to 
their feet. 

A sharp, crisp voice said: “The first man that 
reaches for a gun drops.” They were covered by 
two guns held in the steady hands of the man whose | 
small gray eyes watched from out narrowed lids. 

“I’ll make you a present of the Wolf,” Carney 
said quietly; “I thought I had Sergeant Heath. I , 
could almost forgive this man, if he weren’t such a 
skunk, for doing the job for me. Now I want you 
chaps to pass, one by one, into the pen,” and he j 
nodded toward a heavy wooden door that led from 
the room they were in to the other room that had 
been fitted up as a cell. “I see your carbines and j 
gunbelts on the rack—you really should have been 
properly in uniform by this time; I’ll dump them out ! 
on the prairie somewhere, and you’ll find them in 
the course of a day or so. Step in, boys, and you 
go first, Wolf.” 

When the four men had passed through the door I 
Carney dropped the heavy wooden bar into place, 
turned the key in the padlock, gathered up the fire 
arms, mounted the buckskin, and rode into the west. 

A week later the little school teacher at Fort 
Victor received through the mail a packet that con¬ 
tained five hundred dollars, and this note:— 

Dear Miss Black:— 

I am sending you the five hundred dol¬ 
lars that you bet on a bad man. No 
woman can afford to bet on even a good 




BULLDOG CARNEY 


59 


man. Stick to the kids, for I’ve heard they 
love you. If those Indians hadn’t picked 
up Sergeant Heath and got him to Hob¬ 
bema before I got away with your money 
I wouldn’t have known, and you’d have 
lost out. 

Yours delightedly, 

Bulldog Carney. 





II 


BULLDOG CARNEY’S ALIBI 

A day’s trail north from where Idaho and Mon¬ 
tana come together on the Canadian border, fumed 
and fretted Bucking Horse River. Its nomencla¬ 
ture was a little bit of all right, for from the minute 
it trickled from a huge blue-green glacier up in the 
Selkirks till it fell into the Kootenay, it bucked its 
way over, under, and around rock-cliffs, and areas 
of stolid mountain sides that still held gigantic pine 
and cedar. 

It had ripped from the bowels of a mountain peb¬ 
bles of gold, and the town of Bucking Horse was 
the home of men who had come at the call of the 
yellow god. 

When Bulldog Carney struck Bucking Horse it 
was a sick town, decrepid, suffering from premature 
old age, for most of the mines had petered out. 

One hotel, the Gold Nugget, still clung to its 
perch on a hillside, looking like a bird cage hung 
from a balcony. 

Carney had known its proprietor, Seth Long, in 
the Cceur d’Alene: Seth and Jeanette Holt; in the 
way of disapproval Seth, for he was a skidder; 
Jeanette with a manly regard, for she was as much 
on the level as a gyroscope. 

60 




BULLDOG CARNEY’S ALIBI 61 

Carney was not after gold that Is battled from 
obdurate rocks with drill and shovel. He was a 
gallant knight of the road—a free lance of adven¬ 
ture; considering that a man had better lie in bed 
and dream than win money by dreary unexciting 
toil. His lithe six foot of sinewy anatomy, the calm, 
keen, gray eye, the splendid cool insulated nerve 
and sweet courage, the curious streaks of chivalry, 
all these would have perished tied to routine. Like 
“Bucking Horse” his name, “Bulldog” Carney, was 
an inspiration. 

He had ridden his famous buckskin, Pat, up from 
the Montana border, mentally surveying his desire, 
a route for running into the free and United States 
opium without the little formality of paying Uncle 
Sam the exorbitant and unnatural duty. That was 
why he first came to Bucking Horse. 

The second day after his arrival Seth Long bought 
for a few hundred dollars the Little Widow mine 
that was almost like a back yard to the hotel. Peo¬ 
ple laughed, for it was a worked-out proposition; 
when he put a gang of men to work, pushing on the 
long drift, they laughed again. When Seth threw 
up his hands declaring that the Little Widow was 
no good, those who had laughed told him that they 
had known it all the time. 

But what they didn’t know was that the long drift 
in the mine now ran on until it was directly under 
the Gold Nugget hotel. 

It was Carney who had worked that out, and 
Seth and his hotel were established as a clearing 


62 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


station for the opium that was shipped in by train 
from Vancouver in tins labelled “Peaches, ” 
“Salmon,” or any old thing. It was stored in the S 
mine and taken from there by pack-train down to 
the border, and switched across at Bailey’s Ferry, 
the U. S. customs officers at that point being nice 
lovable chaps; or sometimes it crossed the Kootenay 
in a small boat at night. 

Bulldog supervised that end of the business, 
bringing the heavy payments in gold back to Buck¬ 
ing Horse on a laden mule behind his buckskin; 
then the gold was expressed by train to the head 
office of this delightful trading company in Van¬ 
couver. 

This endeavor ran along smoothly, for the whole 
mining West was one gigantic union, standing “agin 
the government”—any old government, U. S. or 
Canadian. 

Carney’s enterprise was practically legitimatized 
by public opinion; besides there was the compelling 
matter of Bulldog’s proficiency in looking after him¬ 
self. People had grown into the habit of leaving him 
alone. 

The Mounted Police more or less supervised the < 
region, and sometimes one of them would be in j 
Bucking Horse for a few days, and sometimes the » 
town would be its own custodian. 

One autumn evening Carney rode up the Bucking 
Horse valley at his horse’s heels a mule that carried 
twenty thousand dollars in gold slung from either 
side of a pack saddle. 



BULLDOG CARNEY’S ALIBI 


63 


Carney went straight to the little railway station, 
and expressed the gold to Vancouver, getting the 
agent’s assurance that it would go out on the night 
train which went through at one o’clock. Then he 
rode back to the Gold Nugget and put his horse and 
mule in the stable. 

As he pushed open the front door of the hotel 
he figuratively stepped into a family row, a row so 
self-centered that the parties interested were un¬ 
aware of his entrance. 

A small bar occupied one corner of the dim- 
lighted room, and behind this Seth Long leaned 
back against the bottle rack, with arms folded across 
his big chest, puffing at a thick cigar. Facing him, 
with elbows on the bar, a man was talking volubly, 
anger speeding up his vocalization. 

Beside the man stood Jeanette Holt, fire flashing 
from her black eyes, and her nostrils dilated with 
passion. She interrupted the voluble one: 

“Yes, Seth, I did slap this cheap affair, Jack Wolf, 
fair across the ugly mouth, and I’ll do it again!” 

Seth tongued the cigar to one corner of his ample 
lips, and drawled: “That’s a woman’s privilege, 
Jack, if a feller’s give her just cause for action 
You ain’t got no kick cornin’, I reckon, ’cause this 
little woman ain’t one to fly off the handle for 
nothin’.” 

“Nothin’, Seth? I guess when I tell you what 
got her dander up you’ll Agger you’ve got another 
think cornin’. You’re like a good many men I see— 
you’re bein’ stung. That smooth proposition, Bull- 


64 


BULLDOG CABNEY 


dog Carney, is stingin’ you right here in your own 
nest” 

Biff! 

That was the lady’s hand, flat open, impinged on 
the speaker’s cheek. 

The Wolf sprang back with an oath, put his hand 
to his cheek, and turned to Seth with a volley of 
denunciation starting from his lips. At a look that 
swept over the proprietor’s face he turned, stared, 
and stifling an oath dropped a hand subconsciously 
to the butt of his gun. 

Bulldog Carney had stepped quickly across the 
room, and was now at his side, saying: 

“So you’re here, Jack the Wolf, eh? I thought 
I had rid civilization of your ugly presence when I 
turned you over to the police at Hobbema for mur¬ 
dering your mate.” 

“That was a trumped-up charge,” the Wolf stam¬ 
mered. 

“Ah! I see—acquitted! I can guess it in once. 
Nobody saw you put that little round hole in the 
back of Alberta Bill’s head—not even Bill; and he 
was dead and couldn’t talk.” 

Carney’s gray eyes travelled up and down the 
Wolf’s form in a cold, searching manner; then he 
added, with the same aggravating drawl: “You put 
your hands up on the bar, same as you were set 
when I came in, or something will happen. I’ve got 
a proposition.” 

The Wolf hesitated; but Bulldog’s right hand 
rested carelessly on his belt. Slowly the Wolf lifted 






BULLDOG CARNEY’S ALIBI 65 

his arm till his fingers touched the wooden rail, say¬ 
ing, surlily: 

“I ain’t got no truck with you; I don’t want no 
proposition from a man that plays into the hands of 
the damn police.” 

“You can cut out the rough stuff, Wolf, while 
there’s a lady present.” 

Carney deliberately turned his shoulder to the 
scowling man, and said, “How d’you do, Miss 
Holt?” touching his hat. Then he added, “Seth, 
locate a bottle on the bar and deal glasses all 
round.” 

As Long deftly twirled little heavy-bottomed 
glasses along the plank as though he were dealing 
cards, Carney turned, surveyed the room, and ad¬ 
dressing a man who sat in a heavy wooden chair 
beside a square box-stove, said: “Join up, stranger 
—we’re going to liquidate.” 

The man addressed came forward, and lined up 
the other side of Jack Wolf. 

“Cayuse Braun, Mr. Carney,” Seth lisped past 
his fat cigar as he shoved a black bottle toward 
Bulldog. 

“The gents first,” the latter intimated. 

The bottle was slid down to Cayuse, who filled 
his glass and passed it back to Wolf. The latter 
carried it irritably past him without filling his glass. 

“Help yourself, Wolf.” It was a command, not 
an invitation, in Carney’s voice. 

“I’m not drinkin’,” Jack snarled. 


66 BULLDOG CAENEY 

“Yes, you are. I’ve got a toast that’s got to be 
unanimous.” 

Seth, with a wink at Wolf, tipped the bottle and 
half filled the latter’s glass, saying, “Be a sport, 
Jack.” 

As he turned to hand the bottle to Carney he 
arched his eyebrows at Jeanette, and the girl slipped 
quietly away. 

Bulldog raised his glass of whisky, and said: 

“Gents, we’re going to drink to the squarest little 
woman it has ever been my good fortune to run 
across. Here’s to Miss Jeanette Holt, the truest 
pal that Seth Long ever had —Miss Jeanette ” 

Cayuse and Seth tossed off their liquor, but the 
Wolf did not touch his glass. 

“You drink to that toast dam quick, Jack Wolf!” 
and Carney’s voice was deadly. 

The room had grown still. One, two, three, a 
wooden clock on the shelf behind the bar ticked off 
the seconds in the heavy quiet; and in a far corner 
the piping of a stray cricket sounded like the drool 
of a pfirrari. 

There was a click of a latch, a muffled scrape as 
the outer door pushed open. This seemed to break 
the holding spell of fear that was over the Wolf. 

“I’ll see you in hell, Bulldog Carney, before I 
drink with you or a girl that-” 

The whisky that was in Carney’s glass shot fair 
into the speaker’s open mouth. As his hand jumped 
to his gun the wrist was seized with a loosening 
twist, and the heel of Bulldog’s open right hand 




BULLDOG CARNEY’S ALIBI 


67 


caught him under the chin with a force that fair 
lifted him from his feet to drop on the back of his 
head. 

A man wearing a brass-buttoned khaki jacket with 
blue trousers down which ran wide yellow stripes, 
darted from where he had stood at the door, put 
his hand on Bulldog’s shoulder, and said: 

“You’re under arrest in the Queen’s name, Bull¬ 
dog Carney!” 

Carney reached down and picked up the Wolf’s 
gun that lay where it had fallen from his twisted 
hand, and passed it to Seth without comment. Then 
he looked the man in the khaki coat up and down 
and coolly asked. “Are you anybody in particular, 
stranger?” 

“I’m Sergeant Black of the Mounted Police.” 

“You amuse me, Sergeant; you’re unusual, even 
for a member of that joke bank, the Mounted.” 

“Fine!” the Sergeant sneered, subdued anger in 
his voice; “I’ll entertain you for several days over 
in the pen.” 

“On what grounds?” 

“You’ll find out.” 

“Yes, and now, declare yourself!” 

“We don’t allow rough house, gun play, and 
knocking people down, in Bucking Horse,” the Ser¬ 
geant retorted; “assault means the pen when I’m 
here.” 

“Then take that thing,” and Bulldog jerked a 
thumb toward Jack Wolf, who stood at a far corner 
of the bar whispering with Cayuse. 



68 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


“I’ll take you, Bulldog Carney.” 

“Not if that’s all you’ve got as reason,” and Car¬ 
ney, either hand clasping his slim waist, the palms 
resting on his hips, eyed the Sergeant, a faint smile 
lifting his tawny mustache. 

“You’re wanted, Bulldog Carney, and you know 
it. I’ve been waiting a chance to rope you; now I’ve 
got you, and you’re coming along. There’s a thou¬ 
sand on you over in Calgary; and you’ve been run¬ 
ning coke over the line.” 

“Oh! that’s it, eh? Well, Sergeant, in plain Eng¬ 
lish you’re a tenderfoot to not know that the Alberta 
thing doesn’t hold in British Columbia. You’ll find 
that out when you wire headquarters for instruc¬ 
tions, which you will, of course. I think it’s easier 
for me, my dear Sergeant, to let you get this tangle 
straightened out by going with you than to kick ycu 
into the street; then they would have something on 
me—something because I’d mussed up the uniform.” 

“Carney ain’t had no supper, Sergeant,” Seth de¬ 
clared; “and I’ll go bail-” 

“I’m not takin’ bail; and you can send his supper 
over to the lock-up.” 

The Sergeant had drawn from his pocket a pair 
of handcuffs. 

Carney grinned. 

“Put them back in your pocket, Sergeant,” he 
advised. “I said I’d go with you; but if you try to 
clamp those things on, the trouble is all your own.” 

Black looked into the gray eyes and hesitated; 
then even his duty-befogged mind realized that he 





BULLDOG CARNEY’S ALIBI 


69 


would take too big a chance by insisting. He held 
out his hand toward Carney’s gun, and the latter 
turned it over to him. Then the two, the Sergeant’s 
hand slipped through Carney’s arm, passed out. 

Just around the corner was the police barracks, a 
square log shack divided by a partition. One room 
was used as an office, and contained a bunk; the 
other room had been built as a cell, and a heavy 
wooden door that carried a bar and strong lock gave 
entrance. There was one small window safeguarded 
by iron bars firmly embedded in the logs. Into this 
bull-pen, as it was called, Black ushered Carney by 
the light of a candle. There was a wooden bunk in 
one end, the sole furniture. 

“Neat, but not over decorated,” Carney com¬ 
mented as he surveyed the bare interior. “No won¬ 
der, with such surroundings, my dear Sergeant, you 
fellows are angular.” 

“I’ve heard, Bulldog, that you fancied yourself a 
superior sort.” 

“Not at all, Sergeant; you have my entire sym¬ 
pathy.” 

The Sergeant sniffed. “If they give you three 
years at Stony Mountain perhaps you’ll drop some 
of that side.” 

Carney sat down on the side of the bed, took a 
cigarette case from his pocket and asked, “Do you 
allow smoking here? It won’t fume up your cur¬ 
tains, will it?” 

“It’s against the regulations, but you smoke if* 
you want to.” 


70 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


Carney’s supper was brought in and when he had 
eaten it Sergeant Black went into the cell, saying: 
“You’re a pretty slippery customer, Bulldog—I 
ought to put the bangles on you for the night.” 

Rather irrelevantly, and with a quizzical smile, 
Carney asked, “Have you read ‘Les Miserables,’ 
Sergeant?” 

“I ain’t read a paper in a month—I’ve been too 
busy.” 

“It isn’t a paper, it’s a story.” 

“I ain’t got no time for readin’ magazines either.” 

“This is a story that was written long ago by a 
Frenchman,” Carney persisted. 

“Then I don’t want to read it. The trickiest 
damn bunch that ever come into these mountains are 
them Johnnie Crapeaus from Quebec—they’re more 
damn trouble to the police than so many Injuns.” 

The soft quizzical voice of Carney interrupted 
Black gently. “You put me in mind of a character 
in that story, Sergeant; he was the best drawn, if I 
might discriminate over a great story.” 

This allusion touched Black’s vanity, and drew 
him to ask, “What did he do—how am I like him?” 
He eyed Carney suspiciously. 

“The character I liked in ‘Les Miserables’ was a 
policeman, like yourself, and his mind was only ca¬ 
pable of containing the one idea—duty. It was a 
fetish with him; he was a fanatic.” 

“You’re damn funny, Bulldog, ain’t you? What 
I ought to do is slip the bangles on you and leave 
you in the dark.” 



BULLDOG CARNEY’S ALIBI 


71 


“If you could. I give you full permission to try, 
Sergeant; if you can clamp them on me there won’t 
be any hard feelings, and the first time I meet you 
on the trail I won’t set you afoot.” 

Carney had risen to his feet, ostensibly to throw 
his cigarette through the bars of the open window. 

Black stood glowering at him. He knew Carney’s 
reputation well enough to know that to try to hand¬ 
cuff him meant a fight—a fight over nothing; and 
unless he used a gun he might possibly get the worst 
of it. 

“It would only be spite work,” Carney declared 
presently; “these logs'would hold anybody, and you 
know it.” 

In spite of his rough manner the Sergeant rather 
admired Bulldog’s gentlemanly independence, the 
quiet way in which he had submitted to arrest; it 
would be a feather in his cap that, single-handed, 
he had locked the famous Bulldog up. His better 
sense told him to leave well enough alone. 

“Yes,” he said grudgingly, “I guess these walls 
will hold you. I’ll be sleeping in the other room, a 
reception :ommittee if you have callers.” 

“Thanks, Sergeant. I take it all back. Leave me 
a candle, and give me something to read.” 

Black pondered over this; but Carney’s allusion to 
the policeman in “Les Miserables” had had an ef¬ 
fect. He brought from the other room a couple of 
magazines and a candle, went out, and locked the 
door. 

Carney pulled off his boots, stretched himself on 



72 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


the bunk and read. He could hear Sergeant Black 
fussing at a table in the outer room; then the Sergeant 
went out and Carney knew that he had gone to send 
a wire to Major Silver for instructions about his 
captive. After a time he came back. About ten 
o’clock Carney heard the policeman’s boots drop on 
the floor, his bunk creak, and knew that the repre¬ 
sentative of the law had retired. A vagrant thought 
traversed his mind that the heavy-dispositioned, 
phlegmatic policeman would be a sound sleeper once 
oblivious. However, that didn’t matter, there was 
no necessity for escape. 

Carney himself dozed over a wordy story, only 
to be suddenly wakened by a noise at his elbow. 
Wary, through the vicissitudes of his order of life he 
sat up wide awake, ready for action. Then by the 
light of the sputtering candle he saw his magazine 
sprawling on the floor, and knew he had been wak¬ 
ened by its fall. His bunk had creaked; but listen¬ 
ing, no sound reached his ears from the other room, 
except certain stertorous breathings. He had 
guessed right, Sergeant Black was an honest sleeper, 
one of Shakespeare’s full-paunched kind. 

Carney blew out the candle; and now, perversely, 
his mind refused to cuddle down and rest, but took 
up the matter of Jack the Wolf’s presence. He 
hated to know that such an evil beast was even in¬ 
directly associated with Seth, who was easily led. 
His concern was not over Seth so much as over 
Jeanette. 

He lay wide awake in the dark for an hour; then 





BULLDOG CARNEY’S ALIBI 


73 


a faint noise came from the barred window; it was 
a measured, methodical click-click-click of a pebble 
tapping on iron. 

With the stealthiness of a cat he left the bunk, 
so gently that no tell-tale sound rose from its boards, 
and softly stepping to the window thrust the fingers 
of one hand between the bars. 

A soft warm hand grasped his, and he felt the 
smooth sides of a folded paper. As he gave the 
hand a reassuring pressure, his knuckles were tapped 
gently by something hard. He transferred the paper 
to his other hand, and reaching out again, something 
was thrust into it, that when he lifted it within he 
found was a strong screw-driver. 

He crept back to his bunk, slipped the screw¬ 
driver between the blankets, and standing by the 
door listened for ten seconds; then a faint gurgling 
breath told him that Black slept. 

Making a hiding canopy of his blanket, he lighted 
his candle, unfolded the paper, and read: 

“Two planks, north end, fastened with screws. 
Below is tunnel that leads to the mine. Will meet 
you there. Come soon. Important.” 

There was no name signed, but Carney knew it 
was Jeanette’s writing. 

He blew out the candle and stepping softly to the 
other end of the pen knelt down, and with his finger¬ 
tips searched the ends of the two planks nearest the 
log wall. At first he was baffled, his fingers finding 
the flat heads of ordinary nails; but presently he 
discovered that these heads were dummies, half an 


74? 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


inch long. Suddenly a board rasped in the other 
room. He had just time to slip back to his bunk 
when a key clinked in the lock, and a light glinted 
through a chink as the door opened. 

As if suddenly startled from sleep, Carney called 
out: 

“Who’s that—what do you want?” 

The Sergeant peered in and answered, “Nothing! 
thought I heard you moving about. Are you all 
right, Carney?” 

He swept the pen with his candle, noted Carney’s 
boots on the floor, and, satisfied, closed the door 
and went back to his bunk. 

This interruption rather pleased Carney; he felt 
that it was a somnolent sense of duty, responsibility, 
that had wakened Black. Now that he had investi¬ 
gated and found everything all right he would prob¬ 
ably sleep soundly for hours. 

Carney waited ten minutes. The Sergeant’s bunk 
had given a note of complaint as its occupant turned 
over; now it was still. Taking his boots in his hand 
he crept back to the end of the pen and rapidly, 
noiselessly, withdrew the screw-nails from both ends 
of two planks. Then he crept back to the door and 
listened; the other room was silent save for the 
same little sleep breathings he had heard before. 

With the screw-driver he lifted the planks, slipped 
through the opening, all in the dark, and drew the 
planks back into place over his head. He had to 
crouch in the little tunnel. 

Pulling on his boots, on hands and knees he 




BULLDOG CARNEY’S ALIBI 


75 


crawled through the small tunnel for fifty yards. 
Then he came to stope timbers stood on end, and 
turning these to one side found himself in what he 
knew must be a cross-cut from the main drift that 
ran between the mine opening and the hotel. 

As he stood up in this he heard a faint whistle, 
and whispered, “Jeanette.” 

The girl came forward in the dark, her hand 
touching his arm. 

“I’m so glad,” she whispered. “We’d better 
stand here in the dark, for I have something serious 
to tell you.” 

Then in a low tone the girl said: 

“The Wolf and Cayuse Braun are going to hold 
up the train to-night, just at the end of the trestle, 
and rob the express car.” 

“Is Seth in it?” 

“Yes, he’s standing in, but he isn’t going to help 
on the job.” The Wolf is going to board the train 
at the station, and enter the express car when the 
train is creeping over the trestle. He’s got a bar 
and rope for fastening the door of the car behind 
the express car. When the engine reaches the other 
side Cayuse will jump it, hold up the engineer, and 
make him stop the train long enough to throw the 
gold off while the other cars are still on the trestle; 
then the Wolf will jump off, and Cayuse will force 
the engineer to carry the train on, and he will drop 
off on the up-grade, half a mile beyond.” 

“Old stuff, but rather effective,” Carney com¬ 
mented; “they’ll get away with it, I believe.” 



76 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


“I listened to them planning the whole thing out,” 
Jeanette confessed, “and they didn’t know I could 
hear them.” 

“What about this little tunnel under the jail— 
that’s a new one on me?” 

“Seth had it dug, pretending he was looking for 
gold; but the men who dug it didn’t know that it 
led under the jail, and he finished it himself, fixed 
the planks, and all. You see when the police go 
away they leave the keys with Seth in case any sud¬ 
den trouble comes up. Nobody knows about it but 
Seth.” 

There was a tang of regret in Carney’s voice as^ 
he said: 

“Seth is playing it pretty low down, Jeanette; he’s 
practically stealing from his pals. I put twenty 
thousand in gold in to-night to go by that train, coke 
money; he knows it, and that’s what these thieves 
are after.” 

“Surely Seth wouldn’t do that, Bulldog—steal 
from his partners!” 

“Well, not quite, Jeanette. He figures that the 
express company is responsible, will have to make 
good, and that my people will get their money 
back; but all the same, it’s kind of like that—it’s 
rotten!” 

“What am I to do, Bulldog? I can’t peach, can 
I—not on Seth—not while I’m living with him? 
And he’s been kind of good to me, too. He ain’t 
—well, once I thought he was all right, but since I 
knew you it’s been different. I’ve stuck to him—you 








BULLDOG CARNEY’S ALIBI 77 

know, Bulldog, how straight IVe been—but a thief!” 

“No, you can’t give Seth away, Jeanette,” Carney 
broke in, for the girl’s voice carried a tremble. 

“I think they had planned, that you being here in 
Bucking Horse, the police would kind of throw the 
blame of this thing on you. Then your being ar¬ 
rested upset that. What am I to do, Bulldog? 
Will you speak to Seth and stop it?” 

“No. He’d know you had told me, and your life 
with him would be just hell. Besides, girl, I’m in 
jail.” 

“But you’re free now—you’ll go away.” 

“Let me think a minute, Jeanette.” 

As he stood pondering, there was the glint of a 
light, a faint rose flicker on the wall and flooring 
of the cross-cut they stood in, and they saw, passing 
along the main drift, Seth, the Wolf, and Cayuse 
Braun. 

The girl clutched Carney’s arm and whispered, 
“There they go. Seth is going out with them, but 
he’ll come back and stay in the hotel while they pull 
the job off.” 

The passing of the three men seemed to have gal¬ 
vanized Carney into action, fructified in his mind 
some plan, for he said: 

“You come back to the hotel, Jeanette, and say 
nothing—I will see what I can do.” 

“And Seth—you won’t-” 

“Plug him for his treachery? No, because of you 
he’s quite safe. Don’t bother your pretty little head 
about it.” 




78 


BULLDOG CABNEY 


The girl’s hand that had rested all this time on 
Carney’s arm was trembling. Suddenly she said, 
brokenly, hesitatingly, just as a school-girl might 
have blundered over wording the grand passion: 

“Bulldog, do you know how much I like you? 
Have you ever thought of it at all, wondered?” 

“Yes, many times, girl; how could I help it? You ' 
come pretty near to being the finest girl I ever knew.” 

“But we’ve never talked about it, have we, Bull¬ 
dog?” 

“No; why should we? Different men have differ¬ 
ent ideas about those things. Seth can’t see that 
because that gold was ours in the gang, he shouldn’t 
steal it; that’s one kind of man. I’m different.” 

“You mean that I’m like the gold?” 

“Yes, I guess that’s what I mean. You see, well 
—you know what I mean, Jeanette.” 

“But you like me?” 

“So much that I want to keep you good enough 
to like.” 

“Would it be playing the game crooked, Bulldog, 
if you—if I kissed you?” 

“Not wrong for you to do it, Jeanette, because 
you don’t know how to do what I call wrong, but 
I’m afraid I couldn’t square it with myself. Don’t 
get this wrong, girl, it sounds a little too holy, put 
just that way. I’ve kissed many a fellow’s girl, but 
I don’t want to kiss you, being Seth’s girl, and that 
isn’t because of Seth, either. Can you untangle that 
■—get what I mean?” 





BULLDOG CARNEY’S ALIBI 79 

“I get it, Bulldog. You are some man, some 
man!” 

There was a catch in the girl’s voice; she took her 
hand from Carney’s arm and drew the back of it 
irritably across her eyes; then she said in a steadier 
voice: “Good night, man—I’m going back.” 

Together they felt their way along the cross-cut, 
and when they came to the main drift, Carney said: 

“I’m going out through the hotel, Jeanette, if 
there’s nobody about; I want to get my horse from 
the stable. When we come to the cellar you go 
ahead and clear the way for me.” 

The passage from the drift through the cellar 
led up into a little store-room at the back of the 
hotel; and through this Carney passed out to the 
stable where he saddled his bucksin, transferring 
to his belt a gun that was in a pocket of the saddle. 
Then he fastened to the horn the two bags that 
had been on the pack mule. Leading the buckskin 
out he avoided the street, cut down the hillside, and 
skirted the turbulent Bucking Horse. 

A half moon hung high in a deep-blue sky that 
in both sides was bitten by the jagged rock teeth 
of the Rockies. The long curving wooden trestle 
looked like the skeleton of some gigantic serpent 
in the faint moonlight, its head resting on the left 
bank of the Bucking Horse, half a mile from where 
the few lights of the mining town glimmered, and 
its tail coming back to the same side of the stream 
after traversing two short kinks. It looked so in¬ 
adequate, so frail in the night light to carry the 


80 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


huge Mogul engine with its trailing cars. No won¬ 
der the train went over it at a snail’s pace, just the 
pace to invite a highwayman’s attention. 

And with the engine stopped with a pistol at the 
engineer’s head what chance that anyone would drop 
from the train to the trestle to hurry to his assist¬ 
ance. 

Carney admitted to himself that the hold-up was 
fairly well planned, and no doubt would go through 

unless- At this juncture of thought Carney 

chuckled. The little unforeseen something that was 
always popping into the plans of crooks might even¬ 
tuate. 

When he came to thick scrub growth Carney dis¬ 
mounted, and led the buckskin whispering, “Steady, 
Pat—easy, my boy!” 

The bucksin knew that he must make no noisy 
slip—that there was no hurry. He and Carney 
had chummed together for three years, the man 
talking to him as though he had a knowledge of 
what his master said, and he, understanding much of 
the import if not the uttered signs. 

Sometimes going down a declivity the horse’s soft 
muzzle was over Carney’s shoulder, the flexible 
upper lip snuggling his neck or cheek; and some¬ 
times as they went up again Carney’s arm was over 
the buckskin’s withers and they walked like two 
men arm in arm. 

They went through the scrubby bush in the noise¬ 
less way of wary deer; no telltale stone was thrust 






BULLDOG CARNEY’S ALIBI 


81 


loose to go tinkling down the hillside; they trod on 
no dried brush to break with snapping noise. 

Presently Carney dropped the rein from over the 
horse’s head to the ground, took his lariat from the 
saddle-horn, hung the two pack-bags over his shoul¬ 
der, and whispering, “Wait here, Patsy boy,” slipped 
through the brush and wormed his way cautiously 
to a huge boulder a hundred feet from the trestle. 
There he sat down, his back against the rock, and 
his eye on the blobs of yellow light that was Bucking 
Horse town. Presently from beyond the rock car¬ 
ried to his listening ears the clink of an iron-shod 
hoof against a stone, and he heard a suppressed, 
“Damn!” 

“Coming, I guess,” he muttered to himself. 

The heavy booming whistle of the giant Mogul 
up on the Divide came hoarsely down the Bucking 
Horse Pass, and then a great blaring yellow-red eye 
gleamed on the mountain side as if some Cyclops 
forced his angry way down into the valley. A bell 
clanged irritably as the Mogul rocked in its swift 
glide down the curved grade; there was the screech¬ 
ing grind of airbrakes gripping at iron wheels; a 
mighty sigh as the compressed air seethed from 
opened valves at their release when the train stood at 
rest beside the little log station of Bucking Horse. 

He could see, like the green eye of some serpent, 
the conductor’s lantern gyrate across the platform; 
even the subdued muffled noise of packages thrust 
into the express car carried to the listener’s ear. 
Xhen the little green eye blinked a command to 


82 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


start, the bell clanged, the Mogul coughed as it 
strained to its task, the drivers gripped at steel rails 
and slipped, the Mogul’s heart beating a tattoo of 
gasping breaths; then came the grinding rasp of 
wheel flange against steel as the heavy train ca¬ 
reened on the curve, and now the timbers of the 
trestle were whining a protest like the twang of 
loose strings on a harp. 

Carney turned on his hands and knees and, creep¬ 
ing around to the far side of the rock, saw dimly 
in the faint moonlight the figure of a man huddled 
in a little rounded heap twenty feet from the rails. 
In his hand the barrel of a gun glinted once as the 
moon touched it. 

Slowly, like some ponderous animal, the Mogul 
crept over the trestle! it was like a huge centipede 
slipping along the dead limb of a tree. 

When the engine reached the solid bank the 
crouched figure sprang to the steps of the cab and 
was lost to view. A sharp word of command car¬ 
ried to Carney’s ear; he heard the clanging clamp 
of the air brakes; the stertorous breath of the Mo¬ 
gul ceased; the train stood still, all behind the ex¬ 
press car still on the trestle. 

Then a square of yellow light shone where the 
car door had slid open, and within stood a masked 
man, a gun in either hand; in one corner, with hands 
above his head, and face to the wall, stood a second 
man, while a third was taking from an iron safe 
little canvas bags and dropping them through the 
open door. 







BULLDOG CARNEY’S ALIBI 


83 


Carney held three loops of the lariat in his right 
hand, and the balance in his left; now he slipped 
from the rock, darted to the side of the car and 
waited. 

He heard a man say, “That’s all!” Then a voice 
that he knew as Jack the Wolf’s commanded, “Face 
to the wall! I’ve got your guns, and if you move 
I’ll plug you!” 

The Wolf appeared at the open door, where he 
fired one shot as a signal to Cayuse; there was the 
hiss and clang of releasing brakes and gasps from 
the starting engine. At that instant the lariat zipped 
from a graceful sweep of Carney’s hand to float 
like a ring of smoke over the head of Jack the 
Wolf, and he was jerked to earth. Half stunned 
by the fall he was pinned there as though a grizzly 
had fallen upon him. 

The attack was so sudden, so unexpected, that he 
was tied and helpless with hardly any semblance of 
a fight, where he lay watching the tail end of the 
train slipping off into the gloomed pass, and the man 
who had bound him as he nimbly gathered up the 
bags of loot. 

Carney was in a hurry; he wanted to get away 
before the return of Cayuse. Of course if Cayuse 
came back too soon so much the worse for Cayuse, 
but shooting a man was something to be avoided. 

He was hampered a little due either to the Wolf’s 
rapacity, or the express messenger’s eagerness to 
obey, for in addition to the twenty thousand dollars 
there were four other plump bags of gold. But 


84 BULLDOG CARNEY 

Carney, having secured the lot, hurried to his horse, 
dropped the pack bags astride the saddle, mounted, 
and made his way to the Little Widow mine. He 
had small fear that the two men would think of 
looking in that direction for the man who had robbed 
them; even if they did he had a good start for it 
would take time to untie the Wolf and get their one 
horse. Also he had the Wolf’s guns. 

He rode into the mine, dismounted, took the loot 
to a cross-cut that ran off the long drift and dropped 
it into a sump hole that was full of water, sliding 
in on top rock debris. Then he unsaddled the buck¬ 
skin, tied him, and hurried along the drift and 
crawled his way through the small tunnel back to 
jail. There he threw himself on the bunk, and, 
chuckling, fell into a virtuous sleep. 

He was wakened at daybreak by Sergeant Black 
who said cheerfully, “You’re in luck, Bulldog.” 

“Honored, I should say, if you allude to our as¬ 
sociation.” 

The Sergeant groped silently through this, then, 
evidently missing the sarcasm, added, “The midnight 
was held up last night at the trestle, and if you’d 
been outside I guess you’d been pipped as the angel.” 

“Thanks for your foresight, friend—that is, if 
you knew it was coming off. Tell me how your 
friend worked it.” 

Sergeant Black told what Carney already knew 
so well, and when he had finished the latter said: 
“Even if I hadn’t this good alibi nobody would say 
I had anything to do with it, for I distrust man so 




BULLDOG CARNEY’S ALIBI 


85 


thoroughly that I never have a companion in any 
little joke I put over.” 

“I couldn’t do anything in the dark,” the Ser¬ 
geant resumed, in an apologetic way, “so I’m going 
out to trail the robbers now.” 

He looked at Carney shiftingly, scratched an ear 
with a forefinger, and then said: “The express com¬ 
pany has wired a reward of a thousand dollars for 
the robbers, and another thousand for the recovery 
of the money.” 

“Go to it, Sergeant,” Carney laughed; “get that 
capital, then go east to Lake Erie and start a bean 
farm.” 

Black grinned tolerantly. “If you’ll join up, Bull¬ 
dog, we could run them two down.” 

“No, thanks; I like it here.” 

“I’m going to turn you out, Bulldog—set you 
free.” 

“And I’m going to insist on a hearing. I’ll take 
those stripes off your arm for playing the fool.” 

The Sergeant drew from his pocket a telegram 
and passed it to Carney. It was from Major Silver 
at Golden, and ran: 

“Get Carney to help.locate robbers. He knows 
the game. Express company offers two thousand.” 

“Where’s the other telegram?” Carney asked, a 
twinkle in his eye. 

“What other one?” 

“The one in answer to yours asking for instruc¬ 
tions over my arrest.” 

The Sergeant looked at Carney out of confused, 


86 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


astonished eyes; then he admitted: “The Major 
advises we can’t hold you in B. C. on the Alberta 
case. But what about joining in the hunt? You’ve 
worked with the police before.” 

“Twice; because a woman was getting the worst 
of it in each case. But I’m no sleuth for the official 
robber—he’s fair game.” 

“You won’t take the trail with me then, Carney?” 

“No, I won’t; not to run down the hold-up men— 
that’s your job. But you can tell your penny-in-the- 
slot company, that piking corporation that offers 
thousand dollars for the recovery of twenty or thirty 
thousand, that when they’re ready to pay five thou¬ 
sand dollars’ reward for the gold I’ll see if I can 
lead them to it. Now, my dear Sergeant, if you’ll 
oblige me with my gun I’d like to saunter over to 
the hotel for breakfast.” 

“I’ll go with you,” Sergeant Black said, “I haven’t 
had mine yet.” 

Jeanette was in the front room of the hotel as 
the two men entered. Her face went white when 
she saw Carney seemingly in the custody of the 
policeman. He stopped to speak to her, and Black, 
going through to the dining room saw the Wolf and 
Cayuse Braun at a table. He had these two under 
suspicion, for the Wolf had a record with 'the 
police. 

He closed the door and, standing in front of it, 
said: “I’m going to arrest you two men for the 
train robbery last night. When you finish your 



BULLDOG CARNEY’S ALIBI 


87 

breakfast I want you to come quietly over to the 
lock-up till this thing is investigated.” 

The Wolf laughed derisively. “What’re you 
doin’ here, Sergeant—why ain’t you out on the trail 
chasin’ Bulldog Carney?” 

The Sergeant stared. “Bulldog Carney?” he 
queried; “what’s he got to do with it?” 

“Everything. It’s a God’s certainty that he pulled 
this hold-up off when he escaped last night.” 

The Sergeant gasped. What was the Wolf talk¬ 
ing about. He turned, opened the door and called, 
“Carney, come here and listen to Jack Wolf tell 
how you robbed the train!” 

At this the Wolf bent across the table and whis¬ 
pered hoarsely, “Christ! Bulldog has snitched— 
he’s give us away! I thought he’d clear out when 
he got the gold. And he knowed me last night 
when we clinched. And his horse was gone from 
the stable this morning!” 

As the two men sprang to their feet, the Ser¬ 
geant whirled at the rasp of their chairs on the 
floor, and reached for his gun. But Cayuse’s gun 
was out, there was a roaring bark in the walled 
room, a tongue of fire, a puff of smoke, and the 
Sergeant dropped. 

As he fell, from just behind him Carney’s gun 
sent a leaden pellet that drilled a little round hole 
fair in the center of Cayuse’s forehead, and he col¬ 
lapsed, a red jet of blood spurting over the floor. * 

In the turmoil the Wolf slipped through a door 
that was close to where he sat, sped along the hall 


88 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


into the storeroom, and down to the mine chamber. 

With a look at Cayuse that told he was dead, 
Carney dropped his pistol back into the holster, and 
telling Seth, who had rushed in, to hurry for a doctor, 
took the Sergeant in his arms like a baby and carried 
him upstairs to a bed, Jeanette showing the way. 

As they waited for the doctor Carney said: “He’s 
shot through the shoulder; he’ll be all right.” 

“What’s going to happen over this, Bulldog?” 
Jeanette asked. 

“Cayuse Braun has passed to the Happy Hunting 
Ground—he can’t talk; Seth, of course, won’t; and 
the Wolf will never stop running till he hits the bor¬ 
der. I had a dream last night, Jeanette, that some¬ 
body gave me five thousand dollars easy money. 
If it comes true, my dear girl, I’m going to put it 
in your name so Seth can’t throw you down hard 
if he ever takes a notion to.” 

Carney’s dream came true at the full of the moon. 





Ill 


OWNERS UP 

Clatawa had put racing in Walla Walla in cold 
storage. 

You can’t have any kind of sport with one indi¬ 
vidual, horse or man, and Clatawa had beaten every¬ 
thing so decisively that the gamblers sat down with 
blank faces and asked, “What’s the use?” 

Horse racing had been a civic institution, a daily 
round of joyous thrills—a commendable medium for 
the circulation of gold. The Nez Perces Indians, 
who owned that garden of Eden, the Palouse coun¬ 
try, and were rich, would troop into Walla Walla 
long rolls of twenty-dollar gold pieces plugged into 
a snake-like skin till the thing resembled a black 
sausage, and bet the coins as though they were 
nickels. 

It was a lovely town, with its straggling clap- 
boarded buildings, its U. S. Cavalry post, its wide- 
open dance halls and gambling palaces; it was a live 
town was Walla Walla, squatting there in the center 
of a great luxuriant plain twenty miles or more from 
the Columbia and Snake Rivers. 

Snaky Dick had roped a big bay with black points 
that was lord of a harem of wild mares; he had 
89 






90 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


speed and stamina, and also brains; so they named 
him “Clatawa,” that is, “The-one-who-goes-quick.” 
When Clatawa found that men were not terrible 
creatures he chummed in, and enjoyed the gambling, 
and the racing, and the high living like any other 
creature of brains. 

He was about three-quarter warm blood. How 
the mixture nobody knew. Some half-bred mare, 
carrying a foal, had, perhaps, escaped from one of 
the great breeding ranches, such as the “Scissors 
Brand Ranch” where the sires were thoroughbred, 
and dropped her baby in the herd. And the colt, 
not being raced to death as a two-year-old, had grown 
into a big, upstanding bay, with perfect unblemished 
bone, lungs like a blacksmith’s bellows and sinews 
that played through unruptured sheaths. His cour¬ 
age, too, had not been broken by the whip and spur 
of pin-head jocks. There was just one rift in the 
lute, that dilution of cold blood. He wasn’t a 
thoroughbred, and until his measure was taken, 
until some other equine looked him in the eye as 
they fought it out stride for stride, no man could 
just say what the cold blood would do; it was so apt 
to quit. 

At first Walla Walla rejoiced when Snaky Dick 
commenced to make the Nez Perces horses look like 
pack mules; but now had come the time when there 
was no one to fight the “champ,” and the game was 
on the hog, as Iron Jaw Blake declared. 

Then Iron Jaw and Snaggle Tooth Boone, and 







OWNERS UP 91 

Death-on-the-trail Carson formed themselves into 
a committee of three to ameliorate the monotony. 

They were a picturesque trio. Carson was a 
sombre individual, architecturally resembling a leaf¬ 
less gaunt-limbed pine, for he lacked but a scant 
half inch of being seven feet of bone and whip-cord. 

Years before he had gone out over the trail that 
wound among sage bush and pink-flowered ball cac¬ 
tus up into the Bitter Root Mountains with “Irish’’ 
Fagan. Months after he came back alone; more 
sombre, more gaunt, more sparing of speech, and 
had offered casually the statement that “Fagan met 
death on the trail.” This laconic epitome of a gi¬ 
gantic event had crystallized into a moniker for Car- 
son, and he became solely “Death-on-the-trail.” 

Snaggle Tooth Boone had a wolf-like fang on the 
very doorstep of his upper jaw, so it required no 
powerful inventive faculty to rechristen him with ap¬ 
titude. 

Blake was not only iron-jawed physically, but all 
his dealings were of the bullheaded order; finesse 
was as foreign to Iron Jaw as caviare to a Siwash. 

So this triumvirate of decorative citizens, with 
Iron Jaw as penman, wrote to Reilly at Portland, 
Oregon, to send in a horse good enough to beat 
Clatawa, and a jock to ride him. Iron Jaw’s direc¬ 
tions were specific, lengthy; going into detail. He 
knew that a thoroughbred, even a selling plater, 
would be good enough to take the measure of any 
cross-bred horse, no matter how good the latter ap¬ 
parently was, running in scrub races. He also knew 


92 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


the value of weight as a handicap, and the Walla 
Walla races were all matches, catch-weights up. 
So he wrote to Reilly to send him a tall, slim rideij 
who could pad up with clothes and look the part of 
an able-bodied cow puncher. 

It was a pleasing line of endeavor to Reilly—he 
just loved that sort of thing; trimming “come-ons” 
was right in his mitt. He fulfilled the commission \ 
to perfection, sending up, by the flat river steamer, 
the Maid of Palouse, what appeared to be an ordi- i 
nary black ranch cow-pony in charge of “Texas Sam,” 
a cow puncher. From Lewiston, the head of naviga¬ 
tion, Texas Sam rode his horse behind the old Con- 
cord coach over the twenty-five miles of trail to 
Walla Walla. 

The endeavor had gone through with swift 
smoothness. Nobody but Iron Jaw, Death-on-the- 
trail, and Snaggle Tooth knew of the possibilities 
that lurked in the long chapp-legged Texas Jim and 
the thin rakish black horse that he called Horned 
Toad. 

As one spreads bait as a decoy, Sam was given 
money to flash, and instructed in the art of fool talk. 

Iron Jaw was banker in this game; while Snaggle 
Tooth ran the wheel and faro lay-out in the Del 
Monte saloon. So, when Texas dribbled a thousand 
dollars across the table, “bucking the tiger,” it was 
show money; a thousand that Iron Jaw had passed 
him earlier in the evening, and which Snaggle Tooth 
would pass back to its owner in the morning. 

There was no hurry to spring the trap. Texas 








OWNERS UP 


93 


Sam allowed that he himself was an uncurried wild 
horse from the great desert; that he was all wool 
and a yard wide; that he could lick his fighting weight 
in wild cats; and bet on anything he fancied till the 
cows came home with their tails between their legs. 
And all the time he drank: he would drink with 
anybody, and anybody might drink with him. This 
was no piking game, for the three students of get-it- 
in-big-wads had declared for a coup that would cause 
Walla Walla to stand up on its hind legs and howl. 

Of course Snaky Dick and his clique cast covetous 
eyes on the bank roll that Texas showed an inkling 
of when he flashed his gold. That Texas had a 
horse was the key to the whole situation: a horse 
that he was never tired of describing as the king-pin 
cow-pony from Kalamazoo to Kamschatka; a spring- 
heeled antelope that could run rings around any 
cayuse that had ever looked through a halter. 

But Snaky Dick went slow. Some night when 
Texas was full of hop he’d rush him for a match. 
Indeed the Clatawa crowd had the money ready to 
plunk down when the psychological pitch of Sam’s 
Dutch courage had arrived. 

It was all going swimmingly, both ends of Walla 
Walla being played against the middle, so to speak, 
when the “unknown quantity” drifted into the game. 

A tall, lithe man, with small placid gray eyes set 
in a tanned face, rode up out of the sage brush 
astride a buckskin horse on his way to Walla Walla* 
He looked like a casual cow-puncher riding into town 
with the laudable purpose of tying the faro outfit 


94 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


hoof and horn, and, incidentally, showing what could 
be done to a bar when a man was in earnest and had 
the mazuma. 

As the buckskin leisurely loped down the trail- 
road that ran from the cavalry barracks to the heart 
of Walla Walla, his rider became aware of turmoil 
in the suburbs. In front of a neat little cottage, the 
windows of which held flowers partly shrouded by 
lace curtains, a lathy individual, standing beside a 
rakish black horse, was orating with Bacchanalian 
vehemence. Gathered from his blasphemous narra¬ 
tive he knew chronologically the past history of a 
small pretty woman with peroxided hair, who stood 
in the open door. He must have enlarged on the 
sophistication of her past life, for the little lady, 
with a crisp oath, called the declaimer a liar and a 
seven-times misplaced offspring. 

The rider of the buckskin checked his horse, 
threw his right leg loosely over the saddle, and rest- 
fully contemplated the exciting film. 

The irate and also inebriated man knew that he 
had drawn on his imagination, but to be told in 
plain words that he was a liar peeved him. With 
an ugly oath he swung his quirt and sprang for¬ 
ward, as if he would bring its lash down on the 
decolleted shoulders of the woman. 

At that instant something that looked like a boy 
shot through the door as though thrust from a cata¬ 
pult, and landed, head on, in the bread basket of the 
cantankerous one, carrying him off his feet. 




OWNERS UP 


95 

The man on the buckskin chuckled, and slipped 
to the ground. 

But the boy had shot his bolt, so to speak; the 
big man he had tumbled so neatly, soon turned 
him, and, rising, was about to drive a boot into the 
little fellow’s rib. I say about to, for just then 
certain fingers of steel twined themselves in his 
red neckerchief, he was yanked volte face, and a fist 
drove into his midriff. 

Of course his animosity switched to the newcomer ; 
but as he essayed a grapple the driving fist caught 
him quite neatly on the northeast corner of his jaw. 
He sat down, the goggle stare in his eyes suggesting 
that he contemplated a trip to dreamland. 

The little woman now darted forward, crying in 
a voice whose gladsomeness swam in tears: “Bulldog 
Carney! You always man—you beaut!” She would 
have twined her arms about Bulldog, but the placid 
gray eyes, so full of quiet aloofness, checked her. 

But the man’s voice was soft and gentle as he 
said: “The same Bulldog, Molly, girl. Glad I 
happened along.” 

He turned to the quarrelsome one who had stag¬ 
gered to his feet: “You ride away before I get 
cross; you smell like the corpse of a dead booze- 
fighter!” 

The man addressed looked into the gray eyes 
switched on his own for inspection; then he turned, 
mounted the black, and throwing over his shoulder, 
“I’ll get you for this, Mister Butter-in!” rode away. 

The other party to the rough-and-tumble, winded, 


96 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


had erected his five feet of length, and with a palm 
pressed against his chest was emiting between 
wheezy coughs picturesque words of ecomium upon 
Bulldog, not without derogatory reflections upon the 
man who had ridden away. 

In the midst of this vocal cocktail he broke off 
suddenly to exclaim in astonishment: 

“Holy Gawd!” 

Then he scuttled past Carney, slipped a finger 
through the ring of the buckskin’s snaffle and peered 
into the horse’s face as if he had found a long-lost 
friend. 

Perhaps the buckskin remembered him too, for 
he pressed a velvet, mouse-colored muzzle against 
the lad’s cheek and whispered something. 

The little man ran a hand up and down the horse’s 
canon-bones with the inquisitiveness of a blind man 
reading raised print. 

Then he turned to Carney who had been chatting 
with Molly—in full dignity of Walla Walla nomen¬ 
clature Molly B’Damn—and asked: “Where the 
hell d’you get Waster?” 

A faint smile twitched the owner’s tawny mus¬ 
tache, chased away by a little cloud of anger, for in 
that land of many horse stealings to ask a man how 
he had come by his horse savoured of discourtesy. 
But it was only a little wizen-faced, flat-chested 
friend of Molly B’Damn’s; so Carney smiled again, 
and answered by asking: 

“Gentle-voiced kidaloona, explain what you mean 





OWNERS UP 


97 


by the Waster. That chum of mine’s name is Pat— 
Patsy boy, often enough.” 

u Pat nothin’! nor Percy, nor Willie; he’s just 
plain old Waster that I won the Ranch Stakes on in 
Butte, four years ago.” 

“Guess again, kid,” Carney suggested. 

“Holy Mike! Say, boss, if you could think like 
you can punch you’d be all right. That’s Waster. 
Listen, Mister Cowboy, while I tell you ’bout his 
friends and relatives. He’s by Gambler’s Money 
out of Scotch Lassie, whose breedin’ runs back to 
Prince Charlie: Gambler’s Money was by Counter¬ 
feit, he by Spendthrift, and Spendthrift’s sire was 
imported Australian, whose grandsire was the Eng¬ 
lish horse, Melbourne. D’you get that, sage-brush 
rider?” 

“I hear sounds. Tinkle again, little man.” 

Molly laughed, her white teeth and honest blue 
eyes discounting the chemically yellow hair until 
the face looked good. 

The little man stretched out an arm, at the end 
of it a thin finger levelled at the buckskin’s head: 

“Have you ever took notice of them lop ears?” 

“Once—which was continuous.” 

“And you thought there was a jackass strain in 
him, eh?” 

“Pat looked good to me all the time, ears and 
all.” 

“Well, them sloppy listeners are a throw-back to 
Melbourne, he was like that. I’ve read he was a 
mean-lookin’ cuss, with weak knees; but he was all 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


98 

horse: and ain’t Waster got bad knees? And don’t 
he get that buckskin from Spendthrift who was a 
chestnut, same’s his dad, Australian?” This seemed 
a direct query for he broke off to cough. 

“Go on, lad-” 

“Excuse me, sorry”—Molly was speaking—“this 
is Billy MacKay. My old school chum, Bessie, his 
sister, wished him on me a month ago to see what 
God’s country could do for that busted chest.” 

The little man was impatient over the switch to 
himself—the horse was the thing. 

“If it wasn’t for them dicky forelegs—Gawd! 
what a horse Waster’d been. And if his owner, 
Leatherhead Mike Doyle, had kept the weight often 
him he’d’ve stood up anyway, for he was the truest 
thing. Say, Bulldog,—don’t mind me, I like that 
name, it talks good,—Waster didn’t need no blinkers 
he didn’t need no spurs; he didn’t need no whip—I’d 
as lief hit a child with the bud as hit him. He’d 
just break his hear tryin’. Waster was Leather- 
head’s meal ticket, dicky knees and all, till he threw 
a splint. It was the weight that broke him down; 
a hundred and thirty-six pounds the handicapper 
give him in the Gold Range Stakes at a mile and a 
quarter; at that he was leadin’ into the stretch and 
finished, fightin’, on three legs. He was beat, of 
course; and Leatherhead was broke, and I never 
see Waster again. A trombone player in a beer 
garden would have known the little cuss with them 
hot-jointed knees couldn’t pack weight, and would 
Ve scratched him.” 





OWNERS UP 


99 


Carney put a hand caressingly on Jockey Mackay’s 
shoulder, saying: “You stand pat with me, kid—your 
heart is about human, I guess. What was that hos¬ 
tile person’s game?” 

Molly explained with a certain amount of as¬ 
perity : 

“He comes here to-day, Bulldog—Well, you 
know-” 

Carney nodded placidly. 

“He’d seen me down in the Del Monte joint, 
and thought—well, he was filled up on Chinese 
rum. He wasn’t none too much like a man in any¬ 
thing he said or done, but I was standin’ for him 
so long as he don’t get plumb Injun.” 

“Injun? Cripes! An Injun’s a drugstore gent 
compared to that stiff, Slimy Red,” Billy objected. 

“Yes, that’s what started it, Bulldog,—Billy knew 
him.” 

“Knew him—huh! Slimy Red was the crookedest 
rider that ever throwed a leg over a horse. He used 
to give his own father the wrong steer and laugh 
when the old man’s money was burnt up on a horse 
that finished in the ruck.” 

“He comes in here palmin’ off the moniker of 
Texas Sam, a big ranch guy that sees blood on the 
moon when he’s out for a time,” Molly helped with. 

“I didn’t know him at first,” the little man ad¬ 
mitted, “his face bein’ a garden of black alfalfa, 
till I sees that the crop is red for half an inch above 
the surface where it had pushed through the dye. 
Then he says, “I’ll bet my left eye agin’ your big 




100 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


toe/ and I’m on, for that’s a great sayin’ with Slimy 
Red Smith—he was Slimy Red hisself. And politely, 
not givin’ the game away, but callin’ him ‘Texas,’ 
I suggests that me and Molly is goin’ to sing hymns 
for a bit, and that he’d best push on.” 

“Soon’s Billy warbles, ‘Good-bye, stranger,’ ” 
Molly laughed, “this Texas person goes up in the 
air. Well, you see the finish, Bulldog.” 

The little man had wrestled a coughing spell into 
subjection and with apparent inconsistency asked, 
“Did you ever hear of it rainin’ bullfrogs, Mr. Car¬ 
ney?” 

Carney nodded, a suspicion flashing upon him that 
the weak chest was twin brother to a weak brain in 
Billy the Jock. 

“Well, it’s been rainin’ discard race-horses about 
Walla Walla.” 

“Much of a storm?” 

“They’re cornin’ kind of thick. There’s yours, 
Waster, and Slimy Red has got Ding Dong; he’s 
out of Weddin’ Bells by Tambourine.” 

“Are you in a hurry, Bulldog?” Molly asked, 
fancying that Carney’s well-known courtesy was per¬ 
haps the father of his apparent interest. 

“I was, Molly, till I saw you,” he answered gra¬ 
ciously, a gentle smile lighting up his stern features. 

“Oh, you gentleman knight of the road—always 
the silver-tongued Bulldog. There’s a bottle in¬ 
side with a gold necktie on it, waitin’ for a real 
man to pull the cork. Come on, kid Billy.” 

The boy looked at Carney, and the latter said: 






OWNERS UP 


101 


“It’s been a full moon since I pattered with any¬ 
body about anything but fat pork and sundown. 
We’ll accept the little lady’s invitation.” 

“I can give Waster four quarts of oats, Mr. Car¬ 
neys I’ve been ridin’ in the way of a cure.” 

Carney laughed. “You’re a sure little bit of all 
right, kid; the horse first when it comes to grub— 
that’s me; but I’ll feed Pat when he’s bedded for 
the night.” 

Inside the cottage Molly and Bulldog jaunted back 
over the life trail upon which they had met at dif¬ 
ferent times and in divers places. 

But Jockey Mackay had been thrown back into 
his life’s environment at sight of Waster. He was 
as full of racing as the wine bottle was full of bub¬ 
bles; like the wine he effervesced. 

“You been here in Walla Walla before?” he asked 
Carney, breaking in on the memory of a funny some¬ 
thing that had happened when Molly and Bulldog 
were both in Denver. 

“Some time since,” Carney replied. 

“D’you know about Clatawa?” 

“Is it a mine or a cocktail, Billy?” 

“Clatawa’s a horse.” 

“I might have known,” Carney murmured resign¬ 
edly. 

Then the little man narrated of Clatawa, and the 
fatuous belief Walla Walla held that a horse with 
cold blood in his veins could gallop fast enough to 
keep himself warm. He waxed indignant over this, 
declaring that boneheads that held such crazy ideas 


102 


BULLDOG CABNEY 


ought to be bled white, that is in a monetary way. 

Carney, being a Chevalier d’Industrie, had a keen 
nose for oblique enterprises, but up to the present 
he had enjoyed the little man’s chatter simply be¬ 
cause he loved horses himself; but at this, the Cla- 
tawa disease, he pricked his ears. 

‘‘What is your unsavory acquaintance, Slimy Red, 
doing here with Ding Dong?” he asked. 

A cunning smile twisted the lad’s bluish lips as 
he lighted a cigarette. 

“Slimy Red is padded,” he vouchsafed after a 
puff at the cigarette. 

“Padded!” Molly exclaimed, her blue eyes round¬ 
ing. 

“Sure thing. That herrin’ gut can ride at a hun¬ 
dred and twenty pounds. He’s a steeplechase jock, 
gener’ly, though he’s good on the flat, too. He’s 
got a couple of sweaters on under that corduroy 
jacket to make him look big.” 

Carney laughed. “That explains something. 
When I pushed my fist against his stomach I thought 
it had gone clean through—it sank to the wrist; it 
was just as though I had punched a bag of feathers.” 

“But the upper cut was all right, Mr. Carney; it 
was a lallapaloosa.” 

“Why all the clothes?” Molly asked. 

“I’ve been dopin’ it out,” the boy answered. “It’s 
all match races here, catch weights; there ain’t one 
of them could ride a flat car without givin’ it the 
slows, but they know what weight is in a race; 
they know you can pile enough on to bring a cart 



OWNERS UP 


103 


horse and a winner of the Brooklyn Handicap to¬ 
gether.” 

“I see,” Carney said contemplatively; “Slimy Red, 
if he makes a match, figures to get a big pull in the 
weights.” 

“Sure thing, Mike; Walla Walla will bet the fam¬ 
ily plate on Clatawa; they’ll go down hook, line, and 
sinker, and then some. They’ll fall for the clothes 
and think Slimy weighs a hundred and seventy. 
D’you get it?” 

“Fancy I do,” Carney chuckled. “The avaricious 
Mister Red is probably here on a missionary ven¬ 
ture; he aims to separate these godless ones from the 
root of evil through having a trained thoroughbred, 
and an ample pull in the weight.” 

“Now you’re talkin’,” Jockey Mackay declared. 
Then he relapsed into a meditative silence, sipping 
his wine as he correlated several possibilities sug¬ 
gested by the rainfall of racing horses in Walla 
Walla. 

Carney and Molly drifted into desultory talk 
again. 

After a time Billy spoke. 

“It ain’t on the cards that a lot of money is cornin’ 
to Slimy Red—he don’t deserve it; he ought to be 
trimmed hisself.” 

“He sure ought,” Molly corroborated. 

“Hell!” the little man exclaimed; “nobody could 
never trim Red, ’cause he never had nothin’. I 
got it! Somebody in Walla Walla is the angel; and 


104 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


Red’ll get a rakeoff. He don’t own Ding Dong; he 
couldn’t own a lead pad; booze gets his.” 

“Billy,” Molly’s face went serious; “I can guess 
it in once—Iron Jaw! Oh, gee! I’ve been blind. 
Iron Jaw, and Snaggle Tooth, and Death-on-the- 
trail ain’t men to cotton to a coot like Slimy Red; 
they’re gamblers, and don’t stand for anything that 
ain’t a man, only just while they take his roll. 
They’ve been nursin’ this four-flusher. It’s been, 
‘Hello, Texas!’ and ‘Have a drink, Texas.’ I’ve 
got it.” 

“Fancy you have, Molly,” Bulldog submitted. 

“Gawd! that’s the combination,” Billy declared. 
“I was right.” 

“And Iron Jaw has got a down on Snaky Dick 
that owns Clatawa over some bad splits in bets,” 
Molly added. 

“The old game,” Carney laughed. “When thieves 
fall out honest men win a bet. It would appear 
from the evidence that Iron Jaw Blake—I know his 
method of old—has sent out and got some one to 
ship in a horse and rider to trim Clatawa, and turn 
an honest penny.” 

“You’re gettin’ warm, Bulldog, as we used to say 
in that child’s game,” Molly declared. “I know the 
pippin; one Reilly, at Portland. I heard Iron Jaw 
and this Texas talkin’ about him.” 

Carney turned toward the little man. “What 
are we going to do about it, Billy—do we draw 
cards?” 

Billy sprang from his chair, and paced the floor 





OWNERS UP 


106' 


excitedly. “Holy Mike! there never was such a 
chance. Waster can trim Ding Dong to a certainty 
at a mile and a quarter. See, Bulldog, that’s his dis¬ 
tance; he’s a stayer from Stayville; but he can’t pack 
weight—don’t forget that. If you rode him—let’s 
see-” 

The little man stood back and eyed critically the 
tall package of bone and muscle, that while it sug¬ 
gested no surplus flesh, would weigh well. 

“You’re a hundred and seventy-five pounds, and 
you ride in one of ’em rockin’ chairs that’ll tip the 
beam at forty pounds. What chance? Slimy ’ll 
have a five-pound saddle; he could weigh in, saddle 
and all, a hundred and twenty-five. You’d be takin’ 
on a handicap of ninety pounds. What chance?” 

“I might get an Indian boy,” Carney suggested. 

“You might get a doll or a pet monkey,” Billy 
sneered. “What chance?” 

“And they all work for Iron Jaw,” Molly advised; 
“they’d blow; he’d bribe them to pull the horse.” 

“What chance?” Billy repeated with the mournful 
persistency of a parrot. “Guess I’ll go out and 
tell Waster to forget he’s a gentleman and go on 
pluggin’ among the sage brush as a cow-pony.” 

Carney rose when Billy had gone, saying, “Fancy 
I’ll drift on to the rest joint, Molly. I rather want 
to hold converse with a certain man while the 
seeing’s good, if he’s about.” 

“Good-bye, Bulldog,” Molly answered, and her 
blue eyes followed the figure that slipped so grace¬ 
fully through the door, their depths holding a look 



106 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


that was beautiful in its honest admiration. “God!” 
she whispered; “why do women like him—gee!” 

Billy was tickling a lop ear on the buckskin. 

“Mr. Carney,” he said in a low voice, one eye 
on the cabin door, “you heard what Molly said 
about Bessie wishin’ me on her, didn’t you?” 

“Uh-huh!” 

“Let me give you the straight info. Molly sent 
the money to Bessie to bring me here; we was both 
broke. Then I found out Bessie had been gettin’ 
it for a year from her, ’cause I was sick and couldn’t 
ride. I hadn’t saved none, thinkin’ I’d got Rocke¬ 
feller skinned to death as a money-getter. It was 
the wastin’ to make weight that got me. I don’t 
have to sweat off flesh now,” he added pathetically; 
“I’m a hundred and two.” 

“That’s Molly Bur-dan” (her right name) “all 
over—I know her. But don’t worry kid. I haven’t 
got anybody to look after, and having money and 
no use for it makes me lonesome. You give me 
Bessie’s address, and don’t tout off Molly that you’re 
doing it.” 

“I can get the money myself, Mr. Carney—you 
just listen now. I didn’t spring it inside ’cause 
Molly ’d get hot under the collar; she’d say that 
if I rode in a race I’d bust a lung. Gee! ridin’ 
to me is just like goin’ by-bye in a hammock; it ’d 
do me good.” 

Carney put a hand gently on the boy’s shoulder, 
saying: “The size of the package doesn’t mean 





OWNERS UP 


107 


much when it comes to being a man, does it, kid? 
Spring it; get it off your chest.” 

Billy made a horseshoe in the sand with the toe 
of his boot meditatively; then said: 

“Slimy Red, of course, will be lookin’ for a match 
for Ding Dong. Most of the races here is sprints, 
the old Texas game of half-a-mile, and weight don’t 
cut much ice that distance. He’ll make it for a 
mile, or a mile-and-a-quarter, ’cause Ding Dong 
could stay that distance pretty well himself. If you 
was to match Waster against the black, and let me 
ride him, I’d bring home the bacon. He’s a fourteen 
pound better horse than Ding Dong ever was; a 
handicapper would separate them that much on their 
form. Gee! I forgot somethin’,” and Billy, a 
shame-faced look in his eyes, gazed helplessly at 
Bulldog. 

“What was it dropped out of your think-pan, 
kid?” 

“The roll. I’ve been makin’ a noise like a man 
w T ith a bank behind him. A match ain’t like where 
a feller can go into the bettin’ ring if he knows 
a couple of hundred-to-one chances and parley a 
shoe-string into a block of city houses; a match is 
even money, just about. And to win a big stake 
you’ve got to have the long green.” 

“How much, Billy?” 

“Well, the Iron Jaw bunch, bein’ whisky men and 
gamblers, naturally would stand to lose twenty thou¬ 
sand, at least.” 


108 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


4 ‘I could manage it in a couple of days, Billy, by 
keeping the wires hot.” 

“Before I forget it, Mr. Carney, if you do buck 
this crowd make it catch weights. Slimy Red don’t 
own a hair in Ding Dong’s tail, of course, but he’ll 
have a bill of sale right enough showin’ he’s the 
owner, and as he can ride light they’ll word it, 
‘owners up’.” 

Carney was thinking fast, and a glint of light 
shot athwart his placid gray eyes. 

“Happy thought, Kid; we’ll string with them on 
that; we’ll make it owners up.” 

“I said catch weights,” Billy snapped irritably. 

Carney answered with only a quizzical smile, and 
the boy, turning, walked around the horse eyeing 
him from every angle. He lifted first one foot 
and then the others, examining them critically, press¬ 
ing a thumb into the frogs. He pinched with thumb 
and forefinger the tendons of both forelegs; he 
squeezed the horse’s windpipe till the latter coughed; 
then he said: 

“Please, Mr. Carney, mount and give him half a 
furlong at top speed, finishin’ up here. Make him 
break as quick as you can till I see if he’s got the 
slows.” 

As obedient as a servant Bulldog swung to the 
saddle, centered the buckskin down the road, 
wheeled, brought the horse to a standstill, and then, 
with a shake of the rein and a cry of encourage¬ 
ment, came tearing back, the pound of the horse’s 


OWNERS UP 109 

hoofs on the turf palpitating the air like the roll 
of a kettle-drum. 

“Great!” the boy commented when Carney, hav¬ 
ing gently eased the horse down, returned. “He’s 
the same old Waster; he flattens out in that stride 
of his till he looks like a pony. His flanks ain’t 
pumpin’ none. He’ll do; he’s had lots of work— 
he’s in better condition than Ding Dong, ’cause 
Slimy Red’s been puttin’ in most of his trainin’ 
time at the bar. I got a three-pound saddle in my 
trunk that I won the ‘Kenner Stakes’ at Saratoga on. 
Slimy Red will be givin’ me about ten pounds if you 
make the match catch weights; it’ll be a cinch—like 
gettin’ money from home. But don’t tell Molly.” 

“We’ll split fifty-fifty,” Carney said. 

“Nothin’ doin’, Mister Mug; you cop the coin for 
yourself—how much are you goin’ to bet?” 

“Five or ten thousand.” 

“Well, you give me ten per cent of the five thou¬ 
sand—five hundred bucks, if we win. That’ll square 
Molly’s bill for bringin’ me up here.” 

“Come inside, kid,” Carney said; “I want to write 
out something.” 

Inside Carney said, “Molly, I’m going to give Pat 

to Billy for a riding horse-” 

“What?” 

But Billy’s gasp of astonishment was choked by 
a frowning wink of one of Bulldog’s gray eyes. 

“Pat’s getting a little old for the hard knocks 
I have to give a horse,” Carney resumed; “that’s 
partly what I came to Walla Walla for, to get a 






110 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


young horse. Let me have a sheet of paper and a 
pen; it doesn’t do for a man to own a horse in 
this country without handy evidence as how he came 
by him; and though this is a gift I’m going to make 
it out in the form of a bill of sale.” 

Carney drew up a simple bill of sale, stating, that 
for one dollar, paid in hand, he transferred his buck¬ 
skin horse “Pat” to William Mackay. Molly signed 
it as witness. 

“I’ll have to keep Pat for a day or two till I get 
a new pony.” Bulldog declared; “also rather think 
I’ll leave this bill of sale with a friend in town for 
safe keeping, Billy might lose it,” and a wink closed 
one of the gray eyes that were turned on the boy’s 
face. 

As Carney sat the buckskin outside, he whispered, 
“Do you get it, Billy—owners up?” 

“Gee! I get you.” 

The little man had been mystified. 

“Don’t be in a hurry over the race,” he advised; 
“make it for one week away. That’ll give me a 
chance to give Waster a few lessons in breakin’ to 
bring him back to the old days. I’ll put a heavy 
blanket about his neck for a gallop or two and 
sweat some of the fat off his pipes. I can get a set 
of racin’ plates made for him, too, for a pound 
off his feet is four pounds off his back. We’ll give 
him all the fine touches, Mr. Carney, and Waster 
’ll do his part.” 

The little man watched the buckskin lope down 


OWNERS UP 111 

toward Walla Walla, then he turned in to the cot¬ 
tage where he was greeted by Molly’s: 

“Ain’t Bulldog some man, Billy?” 

“Will you tell me something, Molly?” the boy 
asked hesitatingly. 

“Shoot,” she commanded. 

“Is he—was he—the man—Bessie told me some¬ 
thing?” 

“There ain’t no woman on God’s footstool, Billy, 
can say Bulldog Carney was the man that fell down. 
That’s why we all like him. There ain’t a woman 
on the Gold Coast that ever lamped Bulldog that 
wouldn’t stake him if she had to put her sparklers 
in hock. And there ain’t a man that knows him 
that’ll try to put one over—’tain’t healthy. He’s 
got a temper as sweet as a bull pup’s, but he’s 
lightnin’ when he starts. He don’t cotton to no girl, 
’cause he was once engaged to one of the sweetest 
you ever see, Billy.” 

“Did she die, Molly?” 

“The other man did! And nothin’ was done to 
Bulldog ’cause it was cornin’ to the hound.” 

Carney rode on till he came to the Mountain 
House. Here he was at home for the proprietor 
was an old Gold Range friend. 

First he saw that the buckskin had a worthy sup¬ 
per, then he ate his own. 

When it had grown dark and the gleaming lights 
of the Del Monte Saloon were throwing their radi¬ 
ancy out into the street, he put the bridle on his 


m 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


buckskin and rode to the house of “Teddy the 
Leaper,” who was Sheriff of Shoshone County. 

The sheriff welcomed Carney with a differential 
friendship that showed they stood well together as 
man to man; for though Bulldog’s reputation varied 
in different places, arid with different people, it 
stood strongest with those who had known him long¬ 
est, and who, like most men of the West, were apt 
to judge men from their own experience. 

Teddy the Leaper admired Bulldog Carney the 
man; he would have staked his life on anything 
Carney told him. Officially, as sheriff, the County 
of Shoshone was his bailiwick, and the County of 
Shoshone held nothing on its records against Car¬ 
ney. “Always a gentleman,” was Teddy’s summing 
up of Bulldog Carney. 

Carney drew an envelope from his pocket, say¬ 
ing: “Will you take care of this for me, Sheriff? 
Inside is a bill of sale of my horse.” 

“What, Bulldog—the buckskin?” Teddy’s eyes 
searched the speaker’s face; it was unbelievable. A 
light dawned upon the sheriff; Bulldog had put many 
a practical joke over—he was kidding. Teddy 
laughed. 

“Bulldog,” he said, “I’ve heard that you was Eng¬ 
lish, a son of one of them bloated lords, but faith 
it’s Irish you are. You’ve as much humor as you’ve 
nerve—you’re Irish.” 

“There’s also a note in that envelope”—Carney 
ignored the chaff—“that directs you to pay over to a 
little lad that’s up against it out at Molly’s place, 



OWNERS UP 


113 


any money that might happen to be in your hands 
if I suddenly—well, if I didn’t need it—see?” 

“I’ll do that, Bulldog.” 

“Think you’ll be at the Del Monte to-night, 
Sheriff?” Carney asked casually. 

Teddy’s Irish eyes flashed a quizzical look on the 
speaker; then he answered diplomatically: “There 
ain’t no call why I got to be there—lest I’m sent for, 
and I ain’t as spry gettin’ around as I was when I 
made that record of forty-six feet for the hop-step- 
and-jump. If you’ve got anything to settle, go 
ahead.” 

Carney rippled one of his low musical laughs: 
“I’d like to line you up at the bar, Sheriff, for a 
thimbleful of poison.” 

Teddy’s eyes again sought the speaker’s mental 
pockets, but the placid face showed no warrant for 
expected trouble. The Sheriff coughed, then ven¬ 
tured : 

“If you’re goin’ to stack up agin odds, Bulldog, 
I’ll dress for the occasion; I don’t gener’ly go ’round 
hostile draped.” 

Again Carney laughed. “You might bring a 
roomy pocket, Sheriff; it might so turn out that I’d 
like you to hold a few eagle birds till such times 
as they’re right and proper the property of an¬ 
other man or myself. Does that put any kink in 
your code?” 

“Not when I act for you, Bulldog; ’cause it’ll be 
on the level: I’ll be there.” 

Next Carney rode to the Del Monte; and hitch- 


114 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


ing the buckskin to a post, he adjusted his belt till 
the butt of his gun lay true to the drop of his hand. 

As he entered the saloon slowly, his gray eyes 
flashed over the bar and a group of men on the 
right of the gaming tables, for there was one man 
perhaps in Walla Walla he wanted to see before 
the other saw him. It wasn’t Slimy Red—it was 
a tougher man. 

Iron Jaw was leaning against the bar talking to 
Death-on-the-trail, and behind the bar Snaggle Tooth 
Boone stood listening to the conversation. 

As Carney entered a quick look of apprehension 
showed for an instant in Iron Jaw’s heavy-browned 
eyes; then a smile of greeting curled his coarse lips. 
He held out a hand, saying: “Glad to see you, Old 
Timer. You seem conditioned. Know Carson?’’ 

“Yes.” 

Carney shook hands with the two men, and 
reached across to clasp Boone’s paw, adding: 
“We’ll sample the goods, Snaggle Tooth.” 

Boone winced at the appellation, for Carney did 
not smile; there was even the suspicion of a sneer 
on the lean face. 

“How is Walla Walla?” Carney queried, as the 
four glasses were held toward each other in salute. 
“Racing relieved by a little gun argument once in a 
while, I suppose. Chief Joseph threatening to let 
his Nez Perces loose on you?” 

“Racin’ is on the hog,” Iron Jaw growled. 
“There’s a bum over yonder pikin’ agin the Wheel 
that’s been stung by the racin’ bug, but when he 


OWNERS UP 115 

calls for a show-down some of ’em will trim him. 
Hear that?” 

Iron Jaw held up a thumb, and they could hear a 
thin strident voice babbling: 

“Walla Walla’s a nursery for tin horn sports. 
There ain’t a man here got anythin’ but a goose 
liver pumpin’ his system, and a length of rubber 
hose up his back holdin’ his ribs.” 

Somebody objected; and the voice, that Carney 
recognized as Texas Sam’s snarled: 

“Five birds of liberty! You call that bettin’— 
a hundred iron men?” 

“Want to see him?” Iron Jaw queried. “I can’t 
place him. Texas Sam he comes here as; seems 
to be well fixed; but he’s a booze fighter. I guess 
that’s what gives him dreams.” 

Quiescently Bulldog followed the lead of Iron 
Jaw and Death-on-the-trail across the room where, 
with his back to the door, at a roulette table sat 
Texas Sam. He was winning; three stacks of chips 
rose to a toppling height at his right hand. 

Carney noticed from the color that they were five 
dollar chips. Knowing from Molly that Texas was 
a stool pigeon he understood the philosophy of the 
high-priced counters. It was easier to keep tally 
on what he drew and what he turned back in after 
the game, for the losings and the winnings were all 
a bluff, and the money furnished him for the show 
had to be accounted for. Iron Jaw trusted no man. 

“The game’s like roundin’ up a bunch of cows 



116 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


heavy in calf,” Texas was saying as they approached; 
“it’s too damn slow. I want action.” 

He placed five chips on the thirteen as the croupier 
spun the wheel, bleating: 

“Hoodoo thirteen’s my lucky number. I was 
whelped on Friday the thirteenth, at thirteen 
o’clock—as you old leatherheads make it, one A.M.” 

The little ivory ball skipped and hopped as it slid 
down from the smooth plane of the wheel to the 
number chambers. It almost settled into one, and 
then, as if agitated by some unseen devil of per¬ 
versity, rolled over the thin wall and lay, like a 
bird’s egg, in a black nest that was number “13.” 

“By a nose 1 ” Texas exulted. “Do I win, Judge ?” 

The croupier’s face was as expressionless as the 
silver veil of Mahmoud as he built into pillars over 
eight hundred dollars in chips, and shoved them 
across the board to Texas. 

The noisy one swept them to the side of the 
table, and called for a drink. 

It was a curiously diversified interest that cen¬ 
tered on this play of the uncouth Texas. Iron Jaw 
and Death-on-the-trail viewed it with apathetic in¬ 
terest, much as a trainer might watch a pupil punch¬ 
ing the bag—it didn’t mean anything. 

Carney, too, knowing its farcical value, looked 
on, waiting for his opportunity. 

Snaky Dick sat across the table from Texas, drib¬ 
bling a few fifty-cent chips here and there amongst 
the numbers, also waiting. To him the play was 
real; he had seen it in reality a thousand times—a 


OWNERS UP 


m 


man loaded with bad liquor and in possession of 
money running the gamut. Behind Snaky Dick sat 
others of the Clatawa clique waiting for his lead. 
Their money was ready to cinch the match as soon as 
made. 

Iron Jaw watched Snaky Dick furtively; the time 
seemed ripening. They had arranged, through 
some little vagaries of the wheel, vagaries that could 
be brought out by the assistance of the croupier, 
that apparently Texas should make a killing. 

Now the croupier called out: “Make your bets, 
gentlemen.” He gave the wheel a send-off with 
finger and thumb, his droning voice singing the ca¬ 
dence of: “Hurry up, gentlemen! Mlakje fyour 
bets while the merry-go-round plays on.” 

“For a repeat,” Texas shrilled, dropping the 
chips one after another on to the thirteen square until 
they stood like a candle. Impatiently the croupier 
checked him: 

“Mind the limit, Mister.” 

“When I play the sky’s my limit,” Texas 
answered. 

“Not here,” the croupier admonished, sweeping 
three-quarters of the ivory discs from thirteen. 

The little ball of peripatetic fate that had held on 
its erratic way during this, now settled down into 
a compartment painted green. 

“Double zero!” the croupier remarked, and swept 
the table bare. 

Texas cursed. “There ain’t no double zero in 
racin’; there ain’t no green-eyed horse runnin’ for the 


3.18 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


the track—everybody’s got a chance. Here I I’m 
goin’ to cash in.” 

He shoved the ivory chips irritably across the 
table, and the croupier, stacking them in his board, 
said: “A thousand and fifty.” 

As methodically as he had built up the chips, from 
a drawer he erected little golden plinths of twenty- 
dollar pieces, and with both hands pushed them to¬ 
ward the winner. 

Texas put the palm of his hand on the shiny 
mound, saying: 

“I’m goin’ to orate; I’m gettin’ plumb hide-bound 
’cause of this long sleep in Walla Walla. To-mor¬ 
row I’m pullin’ my freight down the trail to the 
outside where men is. But these yeller-throated 
singin’ birds says I got a cow-hocked whang-doodle 
on four hoofs named Horned Toad that can outrun 
anything that eats with molars in Walla Walla, from 
a grasshopper’s jump to four miles. Now I’ve said 
it, ladies—who’s next?” 

A quiet voice at his elbow answered almost plain¬ 
tively: “If you will take your paw off those yellow 
boys I’ll bury them twice.” 

At the sound of that drawling voice Texas sprang 
to his feet, whirled, and seeing Carney, struck at 
him viciously. Carney simply bent his lithe body, 
and the next instant Iron Jaw had Texas by the 
throat, shaking him like a rat. 

“You damn locoed fool!” he swore; “what d’you 
mean?—what d’you mean?” each query being em¬ 
phasized by a vigorous shake. 


OWNERS UP 


119 


“He simply means,” explained Carney, “that he’s 
a cheap bluffer—a wind gambler. When he’s 
called he quits. That’s just what I thought.” 

“Give him a chance, Blake,” Death-on-the-trail 
interposed; “let go!” 

Iron Jaw pressed Texas back into his chair, 
saying: 

“You’ve got too much booze. If you want to bet 
on your horse sit there and cut out this Injun stuff.” 

Snaky Dick had jumped to his feet, startled by the 
fact that Carney was about to break in on his pre¬ 
serve. Now he said: “If Texas is pinin’ for a 
race Clatawa is waitin’—so is his backin’.” 

Carney turned his gray eyes on the speaker: 

“There’s a rule in this country, Snaky, that when 
two men have got a discussion on, others keep out. 
I’ve undertaken to call this jack rabbit’s bluff, and 
he makes good, or takes his noisy organ away to 
play it outside of Walla Walla.” 

Texas Sam had received a thumb in the rib from 
Iron Jaw that meant, “Go ahead,” so he said, 
surlily: “There’s my money on the table. Anybody 
can come in—the game’s wide open.” 

“That being so,” Carney drawled, “there’s a lit¬ 
tle buckskin horse tied to the post outside, that’s 
carried me for three years around this land of de¬ 
light, and he looks good to me.” 

He unslung from his waist a leather roll, and 
dropped its snake-like body across the Texas coin, 
saying: 

“There’s two thousand in twenties, and if this 



BULLDOG CARNEY 


120 

cheap-singing person sees the raise, it goes for a race 
at a mile-and-a-quarter between the little buckskin 
outside and this cow-hocked mule he sings about.” 

“I want to see this damn buckskin,” Texas ob¬ 
jected. 

“You don’t need to worry,” Iron Jaw commented; 
“the horse is pretty nigh as well known as Bull¬ 
dog.” 

But Texas, having been born in a very nest of 
iniquity, having been stable boy, tout, half-mile- 
track ringer, and runner for a wire-tapping bunch, 
was naturally suspicious. 

“I don’t match against an unknown,” he objected; 
“let me lamp this Flyin’ Dutchman of the Plains; 
it may be Salvator for all I know.” 

“Let him get out the door,” Carney sneered; 
“it will be good-bye—we’ll never see him again.” 

“And if we don’t,” Snaky Dick interposed, “I’ll 
cover your money, Carney.” 

Bulldog swung the gray eyes, and levelled them 
at the red-and-yellow streaked beads that did seeing 
duty in Snaky’s face: 

“You ever hear about the gent who was kicked 
out of Paradise and told to go scoot along on his 
belly for butting in?” Then he followed the little 
crowd at Texas Sam’s heels. 

In the yellow glare of the Del Monte lights the 
buckskin looked very little like a race horse. He 
stood about fifteen and a quarter hands, looking 
not much more than a pony, a9, half asleep, he had 
relaxed his body; the lop ears hanging almost at 


OWNERS UP 


m 


right angles to his lean bony head suggested humor 
more than speed. He stood “over” on his front 
legs, a habit contracted when he favoured the weak 
knees. As he was a gelding his neck was thin, so 
far removed from a crest that it was almost ewe- 
like; his tremendous width of rump caused the hip 
bones to project, suggesting an archaic design of 
equine structure. The direct lamplight threw cav¬ 
ernous shadows all over his lean form. 

Texas Sam shot one rapid look of appraisement 
over the sleepy little horse; then he laughed. 

“Pinch me, Iron Jaw!” he cried; “am I ridin’ on 
the tail board of an overland bus seein’ things in 
the desert, and hearin’ wings?” 

He pointed a forefinger at the buckskin. “Is that 
the lopin’ jack-rabbit that runs for your money?” 
he queried of Carney. 

“That horse’s name is Pat,” Bulldog answered 
quietly, “and we’ve been pals so long that when any 
yapping coyote snaps at him I most naturally kick 
the brute out of the way. But that’s the horse, 
Buckskin Pat, that my money says can outrun, for 
a mile-and-a-quarter, the horse you describe as a cow- 
hocked cow-pony, the same being, I take it, the horse 
you scooted away on when I palmed you on the 
mouth this morning.” 

Texas Sam was naturally of a vicious temper, 
and this allusion caused him to flare up again, as 
Carney meant it to. But Iron Jaw whirled him, 
around, saying: 

“Cut out the man end of it—let’s get down to 



BULLDOG CARNEY 


122 

cases. We ain’t had a live boss race for so long 
that I most forget what it looks like. If you two 
mean business come inside and put up your bets, gen¬ 
tlemen.” 

Iron Jaw abrogated to himself the duty of Mas¬ 
ter of Ceremonies. First he set his croupier to 
work counting the gold of Texas Sam and Bulldog 
Carney. There were an even hundred twenty-dollar 
gold pieces in the belt Carney had thrown on the 
table. 

“You’re shy on the raise,” Iron Jaw remarked, 
winking at Texas. 

“I’ll see his raise,” the latter growled. “You’ve 
got more’n that of mine in your safe, Iron Jaw, 
so stack ’em up for me till they’re level. I might 
as well win somethin’ worth while—there won’t be 
no fun in the race. That jack—that buckskin,” 
—he checked himself—“won’t make me go fast 
enough to know I’m in the saddle.” 

“You let me in that and I’ll furnish the speed,” 
Snaky Dick could not resist the temptation to clutch 
at the money he saw slipping away from him. 
“Make it a three-cornered sweep, Mr. Carney,” 
he pleaded; “I’ll ante.” 

“It would be some race,” Iron Jaw encouraged; 
“some race, boys. I’ve seen the little buckskin 
amble. I don’t know nothin’ about this Texas per¬ 
son’s caravan, but Clatawa, for a sauce bottle that 
holds both warm and cold blood, ain’t so slow—he 
ain’t so slow, gents.” 

The idea caught on; everybody in the saloon rose 


OWNERS UP 


123 


to the occasion. Yells of, ‘‘Make it a sweep! Let 
Clatawa in! Wake up old Walla Walla with some¬ 
thing worth while!” came from many throats. 

Bulldog seemed to debate the matter, a smile 
twitching his drab mustache. 

“I’ve said it,” Texas cried; “she’s wide open. 
Anybody that’s got a pet eagle he thinks can fly 
faster’n my cow-pony can run, can enter him. There 
ain’t no one barred, and the limit’s up where the 
pines point to.” 

Snaky Dick had edged around the table till he 
stood close beside Bulldog, where he whispered: 
“Let me in, Carney; I’ve been layin’ for this flannel- 
mouth. I don’t want to see him get away with 
Walla Walla money. You save your stake with 
me, if I’m in.” 

Carney pushed the little wizzen-face speaker 
away, saying: 

“Any kind of a talking bird can swing in on a 
winning if he’s got a copper-riveted, cinch bet. 
But sport, as I understand it, gentlemen, consists 
in providing excitement, taking on long chances.” 

“That’s Bulldog talkin’,” somebody interrupted; 
and they all cheered. 

“That being acknowledged,” Carney resumed, “I 
feel like stealing candy from a blind kid when I 
crowd in on this Texas person. A yellow man 
wouldn’t know how to own a real horse; that money 
on the table is, so to speak, mine now; but as Snaky 
Dick is panting to make it a real race, purely out 
of a kindly feeling for Walla Walla sports, I m 



BULLDOG CARNEY 


124* 

going to let him draw cards. Clatawa is welcome.” 

“The drinks is on the house when I hear a wolf 
howl like that!” Snaggle Tooth yelled. “Crowd 
up, gentlemen—the drinks is on the house! Old 
Walla Walla is goin’ to sit up and take notice; 
Bulldog is some live wire.” 

Chairs were thrust back; men crowded the bar; 
liquors were tossed off. Sheriff Teddy the Leaper, 
who had come in, felt his arm touched by Carney, 
and inclining his head to a gentle pull at his coat- 
sleeve, he heard the latter whisper, “Stake holder for 
my sake.” That was all. 

Then the crowd swarmed back to the table where 
the croupier had remained beside the mound of gold. 

“You give Jim, there, a receipt for a thousand, 
and he’ll pass it out,” Iron Jaw told Texas. 

Jim the croupier took from the safe behind him 
rolls of twenty-dollar gold pieces and stood them 
up in Texas’s pile. He removed a few coins, say¬ 
ing, “The pot is right, gentlemen; two thousand 
apiece.” 

“Hold on,” Snaky Dick cried; “it ain’t closed yet 
—I draw cards.” 

“Not till you see the bet and the raise,” Carney 
objected. “Nobody whispers his way into this 
game; it’s For blood.” 

“Give me a cheque book, Snaggle Tooth,” Snaky 
pleaded. 

“Flimsies don’t go,” Carney objected. 

“Nothin’ but the coin weighs in agin me,” Texas 
agreed; “put up the dough-boys or keep out.” 


OWNERS UP 


125 


Snaky was in despair. Here was just the softest 
spot in all the world, and without the cash he couldn’t 
get in. 

“Will you cash my cheque?” he asked Iron 
Jaw. 

“If Baker’ll O.K. it I figger you must have the 
stuff in his bank—it’ll be good enough for me,” Iron 
Jaw replied. 

There was a little parley between Snaky Diclc, 
his associates, and Baker, who was a private banker. 
The cheque w r as made out, endorsed, and cashed 
from the gambling funds, Iron Jaw being a partner 
of Snaggle Tooth’s in this commercial enterprise. 

When the pot was complete, six thousand on the 
table, Texas said: 

“We’ve got to have a stakeholder; put the money 
in Blake’s hands—does that go?” 

Snaky Dick coughed, and hesitated. He had no 
suspicion that Iron Jaw had any interest with Texas 
Sam, but knowing the man as he did, he felt sure 
that before the race was run Iron Jaw and Snaggle 
Tooth would be in the game up to the eyes. 

The drawling voice of @arney broke the little 
hush that followed this request. 

“You’re from the outside, Texas; you know all 
about your own horse, and that lets you out. The 
selecting of a stakeholder, and such, most properly 
belongs to Walla Walla, that is to say, such of us 
interested as more or less live here. The Sheriff 
of Shoshone, who is present, if he’ll oblige, is the 
man that holds my money, and yours, too, unless 



126 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


you want to crawfish. Does that suit you, Snaky ?” 

“It does,” the latter answered cheerfully, for, 
fully believing that Clatawa was going to show a 
clean pair of heels to the other horses, he wanted 
the money where he could get it without gun-play. 

“That’s settled, then,” Carney said blithely, ignor¬ 
ing Texas completely. He turned to Teddy the 
Leaper: “Will you oblige, Sheriff?” 

The Sheriff was agreeable, saying that as soon 
as they had completed details they would take the 
money over to Baker’s bank and lock it up in the 
safe, Baker promising to take charge of it, even if 
it were at night. 

“Just repeat the conditions of the match,” the 
Sheriff said, and he drew from his pocket a note 
book and pencil. 

Carney seized the opportunity to say: 

“A three-cornered race between the buckskin 
gelding Pat, the black gelding Horned Toad, and 
the bay horse Clatawa at one mile and a quarter. 
The stake, two thousand dollars a corner; winner 
take all. To be run one week from to-day.” 

“Is that right, gentlemen?” the Sheriff asked; “all 
agreed?” 

“Owners up—this is a gentleman’s race,” Texas 
snapped. 

“Satisfactory?” the Sheriff asked, his eyes on Car¬ 
ney. 

The latter nodded; and Iron Jaw winked at Snag¬ 
gle Tooth. 

Snaky Dick could scarce credit his ears; surely 


OWNERS UP 


m 

the gods were looking with favor upon his fortunes; 
the other riders would be giving him many pounds in 
this self-accepted handicap. 

At Sheriff Teddy’s suggestion the gold was car¬ 
ried over to Baker’s bank, a stone building almost 
opposite the Del Monte; the bag containing it was 
sealed and placed in a big safe, Baker giving the 
Sheriff a receipt for six thousand dollars. 

Then they went back to the Del Monte for tar¬ 
get practise at the bottle, each man implicated buying 
ammunition. 

At this time Carney had taken the buckskin to 
his stable, going back to the saloon. 

Snaggle Tooth made a short patriotic speech, the 
burden of which was that the saloon was full of men 
of eager habit who had not had a chance to sit into 
the game, and to ameliorate the condition of these 
mournful mavericks he would sell pools on the race, 
for the mere honorarium of five per cent 

Fever was in the men’s blood; if he had suggested 
twenty per cent it would have gone. 

Snaggle Tooth took up his position behind a faro 
table and called out: 

“The pool is open, with Clatawa, Horned Toad, 
and Pat in the box. What am I bid for first choice ?” 

“Twenty dollars,” a voice cried. 

“Thirty,” another said. 

“Forty.” 

“Fifty.” 

A dry rasp that suggested an alkaline throat 
squeaked: “A hundred. Is this a horse race, or 


128 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


are we dribblin’ into the plate at the synagogue?” 

“Sold!” Snaggle Tooth yapped, knowing well that 
excitement begat quick action. “Which cayuse do 
you favor, plunger?” 

“The range horse, Clatawa.” 

The croupier at Snaggle Tooth’s elbow took the 
bidder’s five twenty-dollar gold pieces and passed 
him a slip with Clatawa’s name on it. 

“A hundred dollars in the box and second choice 
for sale,” Snaggle Tooth drawled, his prominent 
fang gleaming in the lamp light as he mouthed the 
words. 

Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty was bid like the 
quick popping of a machine gun; at seventy-five the 
bids hung fire, and the auctioneer, thumping the 
table with his bony fist, snapped, “Sold! Name 
your jack rabbit.” 

“Horned Toad!” came from the bidder of the 
seventy-five. 

“A hundred and seventy-five in the box,” Snag¬ 
gle Tooth droned, “and the buckskin for sale. What 
about it, you pikers—what about it?” 

There seemed to be nothing about it, unless silence 
was something. The hush seemed to dampen the 
gambling spirit. 

“What!” yelped Snaggle Tooth; “two thousand 
golden bucks staked on the horse now, and no tin¬ 
horn with sand enough in his gizzard to open his 
trap. This is a race, not a funeral—who’s dead? 
Bulldog, you laid even money; here’s a hundred and 


OWNERS UP 


129 


seventy-five goin’ a-beggin\ Ain’t you got a 
chance?” 

“Ten dollars!” Carney bid as if driven into it. 

“Ten dollars, ten dollars bid for the buckskin; 
a hundred and seventy-five in the box, and ten dol¬ 
lars bid for the buckskin. Sold!” 

The first pool was followed by others, one after 
another: the roulette table, the keno game, and faro 
were in the discard—their tables were deserted. 

It soon became evident that Clatawa was a hot 
favorite; the public’s money was all for the Walla 
Walla champion. 

Noting this, the Horned Toad trio hung back, 
bidding less. Clatawa was selling for a hundred, 
Horned Toad about fifty, and the buckskin some¬ 
times knocked down at ten to Carney, or sometimes 
bid up to twenty by someone tempted by the odds. 

At last Carney slipped quietly away, having bought 
at least twenty pools that stood him between three 
and four thousand to a matter of two hundred. 

In the morning he rode the buckskin out to Molly’s 
cottage and turned him over to Billy. 

The boy’s voice trembled with delight when he was 
told of what had taken place. 

“Gee! now I will get well,” he said; “I’ll beat the 
bug out now—I’ll have heart. You see, Mr. Car¬ 
ney, I got set down in California a year ago. It 
wasn’t my fault; I was ridin’ for Timberleg Har¬ 
ley, and he give the horse a bucket of water before 
the race; he didn’t want to win—was lettin’ the 
horse run for Sweeney, layin’ for a big price later 


130 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


on. He had an interest in a book, and they took 
liberties with the horse’s odds—he was favorite. 
He didn’t dare tell me anything about it, the hound. 
When I found the horse couldn’t raise a gallop, 
hangin’ in my hands like a sea lion, I didn’t ride him 
out, thinkin’ he’d broke down. They had me up 
in the Judges’ Stand, and sent for the books. It 
looked bad. Timberleg got off by swearin’ I’d 
pulled the horse to let the other one win; swore that 
I stood in with the book that overlaid him. I was 
give the gate, and it just broke my heart. I was 
weak from wastin’ anyway. And you can’t beat 
the bug out if your heart’s soft; the bug’ll win— 
it’s a hundred-to-one on him. First thing I’m 
goin’ to give Waster a ball to clean him out, 
give him a bran mash, too. He must be like a 
currycomb inside, grass and hay and everything 
here is full of this damn cactus. A week ain’t 
much to ready up a horse for a race, but he 
ain’t got no fat to work off, and he knows the game. 
In a week he’ll be as spry as a kitten. I’ll just play 
with him. I’ll bunk with him, too. If Slimy Red 
got wise to anything he’d slip him a twig of locoe, 
or put a sponge up his nose. Do you know what 
that thief did once, Mr. Carney? He was a moon¬ 
lighter; he sneaked the favorite for a race that was 
to be run next day out of his stall at night and gal¬ 
loped him four miles with about a hundred and sixty 
in the saddle. That settled the favorite; he run 
his race same’s if he was pullin’ a hearse. 

“That’s a good idea, Billy. There’s half-a-dozen 


OWNERS UP 


131 


Slimy Reds in Walla Walla: it’s a good idea, only 
I’ll do the sleeping with the buckskin. I’d be lone¬ 
some away from him.” 

The boy objected, but Carney was firm. 

Billy was not only a good rider, but he was a 
man of much brains. There was little of the art of 
training that he did not know, for his father had 
been a trainer before him—he had been brought up 
in a stable. 

Fortunately the buckskin’s working life had left 
little to be desired in the way of conditioning; it was 
just that the sinews and muscles might have become 
case-hardened, more the muscles of endurance than 
activity. 

But then the race was over a distance, a mile-and- 
a-quarter, where the endurance of the thoroughbred 
would tell over Clatawa. Indeed, full of the con¬ 
tempt which a racing man has for a cold-blooded 
horse, Billy did not consider Clatawa in the race 
at all. 

“That part of it is just found money,” he assured 
Carney. “Clatawa will go off with a burst of speed 
like those Texas half-milers, and he’ll commence 
to die at the mile; he hasn’t a chance.” 

As to Ding Dong it was simply a question of 
whether the black had improved and Waster gone 
back enough, through being thrown out of train¬ 
ing, to bring the two together. Anywhere near 
alike in condition Waster was a fourteen-pound bet¬ 
ter horse than Ding Dong. It might be that now, 
his legs sounder than they had ever been when he 


132 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


was racing, Waster might run the best mile-and-a- 
quarter of his life. 

Of course this might not be possible in a three- 
quarter sprint, for, at that terrific rate of going, run¬ 
ning it from end to end at top speed, a certain ner¬ 
vous or muscular system would be called upon that 
had practically become atrophied through the more 
leisure ways of the trail work. 

The little man pondered over these many things 
just as a man of commerce might mentally canvas 
great markets, conveying his point of view to Car¬ 
ney generally. He would map out the race as they 
sat together in the evening. 

“Of course Snaky Dick will shoot out from the 
crack of the pistol, and try to open up a gap that’ll 
break our hearts. He won’t dare to pull Clatawa in 
behind; a cold-blooded horse’s got the heart of a 
chicken—he’d quit. Slimy’ll carry Ding Dong 
along at a rate he knows will leave him enough for 
a strong run home; but he’ll think that he’s only got 
Clatawa to beat and he’ll pull out of his pace— 
he’ll keep within strikin’ distance of Clatawa. I’ll 
let them go on. I know ’bout how fast Waster can 
run that mile-and-a-quarter from end to end. Don’t 
you worry if you see me ten lengths out of it at the 
mile. Waster won all his races cornin’ through his 
horses from behind—’cause he’s game. When Cal- 
tawa cracks, and I’m not up, Slimy’ll stop ridin’ he’ll 
let his horse down thinkin’ he’s won. You’ll see, 
Mr. Carney. If a quarter-of-a-mile from the fin¬ 
ish post I’m within three lengths of Ding Dong and 


OWNERS UP 


133 


not drivin’ him you can take all the money in sight. 
I’ll tell you somethin’ else, Mr. Carney; if I’m up 
with Ding Dong, and Slimy Red thinks I’ve got 
him, he’ll try a foul.” 

i “Glad you mentioned it, little man,” Carney re¬ 
marked drily. 

The buckskin was given a long steady gallop the 
day after he had received the ball of physic; then 
for three days he was given short sprinting runs 
and a little practise at breaking from the gun. Two 
days before the race he was given a mile and a quar¬ 
ter at a little under full speed; rated as though he 
were in a race, the last half a topping gallop. He 
showed little distress, and cleaned up his oats an 
hour later after he had been cooled out. Billy was 
in an ecstasy of happy content. 

Nobody who was a judge of a horse’s pace had 
seen Waster gallop his trial over the full course, 
for the boy had arranged it cleverly. Texas Sam 
and Snaky Dick both worked their horses in the 
morning, and sometimes gave them a slow gallop in 
the evening. Billy knew that at the first peep of 
day some of the Clatawa people would be on the 
track, so he waited that morning until everybody had 
gone home to breakfast, thinking all the gallops were 
over; then he slipped on to the course and covered 
the mile-and-a-quarter without being seen. 

The course was a straightaway, one hundred feet 
wide, lying outside of the town on the open plain, 
and running parallel to the one long street. The 
finish post was opposite the heart of the town. 


134 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


The week was one long betting carnival; one heard 
nothing but betting jargon. It was horse morning, 
noon, and night. 

Carney had acquired another riding horse, and 
the Horned Toad cabal laughed cynically at his seri¬ 
ousness. Iron Jaw could not understand it, for Bull¬ 
dog had a reputation for cleverness; but here he was 
acting like a tenderfoot. Once or twice a suspicion 
flashed across his mind that perhaps Bulldog had dis¬ 
covered something, and meant to call them after they 
had won the race. But there was Clatawa; there 
was nothing to cover up in his case, and surely Car¬ 
ney didn’t think he could beat the bay with his buck¬ 
skin. Besides they weren’t racing under Jockey 
Club rules. They hadn’t guaranteed anything; 
Carney had matched his horse against the black, 
and there he was; names didn’t count—the horse 
was the thing. 

Molly had heard about the match and had grown 
suspicious over Billy’s active participation, fearing 
it might bring on a hemorrhage if he rode a punish¬ 
ing race. When she taxed Billy with this he pleaded 
so hard for a chance to help out, assuring Molly that 
Waster would run his own race, and would need 
little help from him, that she yielded. When she 
talked to Bulldog about it he told her he was going 
to give the whole stake to Billy, the four thousand, 
if he won it. 

And then came the day of the great match. From 
the time the first golden shafts of sunlight had 
streamed over the Bitter Root Mountains, picking 


OWNERS UP 


135 


out the forms of Walla Walla’s structures, that 
looked so like a mighty pack of wolves sleeping in 
the plain, till well on into the afternoon, the border 
town had been in a ferment. What mattered 
whether there was gold in the Coeur d’Alene or not; 
whether the Nez Perces were good Presbyterians 
under the leadership, physically, of Chief Joseph, 
and spiritually, Missionary Mackay, was of no mo¬ 
ment. A man lay cold in death, a plug of lead some¬ 
where in his chest, the result of a gambling row, 
but the morrow would be soon enough to investigate; 
to-day was the day—the day of the race; minor 
business was suspended. 

It made men thirsty this hot, parching anticipation; 
women had a desire for finery. Doors stood open, 
for the dwellers could not sit, but prowled in and 
out, watching the slow, loitering clock hands for 
four o’clock. 

One phrase was on everybody’s lips; “I’ll take 
that bet.” 

Numerically the followers of Clatawa were in 
the majority; but there was a weight of metal be¬ 
hind Horned Toad that steadied the market; it came 
from a mysterious source. Texas Sam had been 
played for a blatant fool; nobody had seen Horned 
Toad show a performance that would warrant back¬ 
ing. 

The little buckskin was looked upon as a sacrifice 
to his owner’s well-known determination, his wild 
gambling spirit, that once roused, could not be 
bluffed. They pitied Carney because they liked him; 


136 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


but what was the use of stringing with a man who 
held the weakest hand? And yet when somebody, 
growing rash, offered ten to one against the buck¬ 
skin, a man, quite as calm and serene as Bulldog 
Carney himself, looking like a placer miner who 
worked a rocker on some bend of the Columbia, 
would say, diffidently, “I’ll take that bet.” And he 
would make good—one yellow eagle or fifty. It 
was almost ominous, the quiet seriousness of this 
man who said his name was Oregon, just Oregon. 

“Talk of gamblers,” Iron Jaw said with a splut¬ 
tering laugh, and he pointed to the street where 
little knots of people stood, close packed against 
some two, who, money in hand, were backing their 
faith. Then the fatty laugh chilled into a cold¬ 
blooded sneer: 

“Snaggle Tooth, we’ll learn these tin-horns some¬ 
thin’; tomorrow your safe won’t be big enough to 
hold it. But, say, don’t let that Texas brayin’ ass 
have no more booze.” 

“If you ask me, Blake, I think he’s yeller. He’s 
plumb babyfied now because of Carney—sober he’d 
quit.” 

“Carney won’t turn a hair when we win.” 

“Course he won’t. But you can’t get that into 
Texas’s noodle with a funnel—he’s hoodooed; wants 
me to plant a couple of gun men at the finish for 
fear Bulldog’ll grab him.” 

“Look here, Snaggle, that coyote—hell! I know 
the breed of them outlaws, they’d rather win a race 
crooked than by their horse gallopin’ in front— 


OWNERS UP 1ST 

he just can’t trust himself; he’s afraid he’ll foul the 
others when the chance flashes on him. You just 
tell him that we can’t stand to kiss twenty thousand 
good-bye because of any Injun trick; the Sheriff 
wouldn’t stand for it for a minute; he’d turn the 
money over to the horse that he thought ought to 
get it, quick as a wolf’d grab a calf by the throat.” 

That was the atmosphere on that sweet-breathed 
August day in the archaic town of Walla Walla. 

It was a perfectly conceived race; three men in 
it and each one confident that he held a royal flush; 
each one certain that, bar crooked work, he could 
win. 

The sporting Commandant of the U. S. Cavalry 
troop had been appointed judge of the finish at the 
Sheriff’s suggestion; and another officer was to fire 
the starting gun. 

It was a springy turf course; just the going to suit 
Waster, whose legs had been dicky. On a hard 
course, built up of clay and sand, guiltless of turf, 
the fierce hammering of the hoofs might even yet 
heat up his joints, though they looked sound; his 
clutching hoofs might cup out unrooted earth and 
bow a tendon. 

An hour before race time people had flocked out 
to the goal where would be settled the ownership 
of thousands of dollars by the gallant steed that 
first caught the judge’s eye as he flashed past the 
post. Even Lieutenant Governor Moore was there; 
that magnificent Nez Perces, Chief Joseph, sat his 
half-blooded horse a six-foot-three bronze Apollo, 




138 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


every inch a king in his beaded buckskins and his 
eagle feathers. The picture was Homeric, grand; 
and behind the canvas was the subtle duplicity of 
gold worshipers. 

At half-past three a hush fell over the chattering, 
betting, vociferating throng, as the judge, a tall 
soldierly figure of a man, called: 

“Bring out the horses for this race: it is time to go 
to the post!” 

Clatawa was the first to push from behind the 
throng to the course where the judge stood. He 
was a beautiful, high-spirited bay with black points, 
and a broad line of white, starting from a star in 
his forehead, ran down his somewhat Roman nose. 
Two men led him, one on either side, and a blanket 
covered his form. 

Then Horned Toad was led forward by a stable 
man; beneath a loose blanket showed the outlines 
of a small saddle. The horse walked with the 
unconcerned step of one accustomed to crowds, and 
noise, and blare. Beside him strode Texas Sam, a 
long coat draping his form. 

Behind Horned Toad came the buckskin, at his 
heels Bulldog Carney, and beside Carney a figure 
that might have been an eager boy out for the holi¬ 
day. The buckskin walked with the same indiffer¬ 
ence Horned Toad had shown. 

As he was brought to a stand he lifted his long 
lean neck, threw up the flopped ears, spread his 
nostrils, and with big bright eyes gazed far down 
the track, so like a huge ribbon laid out on the plain, 


OWNERS UP 


139 


as if wondering where was the circular course he 
loved so well. He knew it was a race—that he was 
going to battle with those of his own kind. The 
tight cinching of the little saddle on his back, the 
bandages on his shins, the sponging out of his mouth, 
the little sprinting gallops he had had—all these 
touches had brought back to his memory the game 
his rich warm, thoroughbred blood loved. His very 
tail was arched with the thrill of it. 

“Mount your horses; it is time to go to the post!” 
Judge Cummings called, watch in hand. 

The blanket was swept from Clatawa’s back, 
showing nothing but a wide, padded surcingle, with 
a little pocket either side for his rider’s feet. And 
Snaky Dick, dropping his coat, stood almost as 
scantily attired; a pair of buckskin trunks being 
the only garment that marked his brown, monkey¬ 
like form. 

Horned Toad carried a racing saddle, and from 
a shaffle bit the reins ran through the steel rings of 
a martingale. 

At this Carney smiled, and more than one in the 
crowd wondered at this get-up for a supposed cow- 
pony. 

Then when Texas threw his long coat to a stable 
man, and stood up a slim lath of a man, clad in light 
racing boots, thin white tight-fitting racing breeches 
and a loose silk jacket, people stared again. It was 
as if, by necromancy, he had suddenly wasted from 
off his bones forty pounds of flesh. 

But there was still further magic waiting the curi- 


140 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


ous throng, for now the buckskin, stripped of his 
blanket, showed atop his well-ribbed back a tiny 
matter of pigskin that looked like a huge postage 
stamp. And the little figure of a man, one foot in 
Carney’s hand, was lifted lightly to the saddle, where 
he sat in attire the duplicate of Texas Sam’s. 

With a bellow of rage Iron Jaw pushed forward, 
crying: 

“Hold, there! What th’ hell are you doin’ on 
that horse, you damn runt? Get down!” 

He reached a huge paw to the rider’s thigh, as 
though he would yank him out of the saddle. 

His fingers had scarce touched the boy’s leg when 
his hands were thrown up in the air, and he reeled 
back from a scimitar-like cut on his wind-pipe from 
the flat open hand of Carney, and choking, sputtering 
an oath of raging astonishment, he found himself 
looking into the bore of a gun, and heard a voice 
that almost hissed in its constrained passion: 

“You coarse butcher! You touch that boy and 
you’ll wake up in hell. Now stand back and make 
to Judge Cummings any complaint you have.” 

Snaggle Tooth and Death-on-the-trail had pushed 
to Iron Jaw’s side, their hands on their guns, and 
Carney, full of a passion rare with him, turned on 
them: 

“Draw, if you want that, or lift your hands, damn 
quick!” 

Surlily they dropped their half-drawn guns back 
into their pig-skin pockets. And Oregon, who had 
thrust forward, drew close to the two and said 


OWNERS UP 


141 


something in a low voice that brought a bitter look 
of hatred into the face of Snaggle Tooth. 

But Oregon looked him in the eye and said 
audibly: “That’s the last call to chuck—don’t for¬ 
get.” 

Iron Jaw was now appealing to the judge: 

“This match was for owners up.” 

He beckoned forward the stakeholder: 

“Ain’t that so, Sheriff—owners up?” 

“That was the agreement,” Teddy sustained. 

“Wasn’t that the bargain, Carney?” Iron Jaw 
asked, turning on Bulldog. 

“It was.” 

“Then what th’ hell ’re you doin’ afoot—and that 
monkey up?” And Iron Jaw jerked a thumb vi¬ 
ciously over his shoulder at the little man on Waster. 

Carney’s head lifted, and the bony contour of his 
lower jaw thrust out like the ram of a destroyer: 

“Mr. Blake,” he said quietly, “don’t use any foul 
words wben you speak to me—we’re not good enough 
pals for that; if you do I’ll ram those crooked teeth 
of yours down your throat. Secondly, that’s the 
owner of the buckskin sitting on his back. But the 
owner of Horned Toad is sitting in a chair down 
in Portland, a man named Reilly, and that thing on 
Ding Dong’s back is Slimy Red, a man who has 
been warned off every track in the West. He 
doesn’t own a hair in the horse’s tail.” 

Iron Jaw’s face paled with a sudden compelling 
thought that Carney, knowing all this, and still bet¬ 
ting his money, held cards to beat him. 


142 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


The judge now asked: “Do you object to the 
rider of Horned Toad, Mr. Carney?” 

“No, sir—let him ride. I’m not trying to win 
their money on a technicality, but on a horse.” 

“Well, the agreement was owners up, you admit?” 

“I do,” Carney answered. 

“Did this boy on the buckskin’s back own him 
when the match was made?” 

“He did.” 

“Is there any proof of the transaction, the sale?” 
Major Cummings asked. 

“Let me have that envelope I asked you to keep,” 
Carney said, addressing the sheriff. 

When Teddy drew from a pocket the sealed 
envelope, Carney tore it open, and passed to the 
judge the bill of sale to MacKay of the buckskin. 
Its date showed that it had been executed the day 
the match was made, and Teddy, when questioned, 
said he had received it on that date, and before the 
match was made. 

“It was a plant,” Iron Jaw objected; “that proves 
it. Why did he put it in the sheriff’s hands—why 
didn’t the boy keep it—it was his?” 

“Because I had a hunch I was going up against 
a bunch of crooks,” Carney answered suavely; 
“crooks who played win, tie, or wrangle, and knew 
they would claim the date was forged when they 
were beat at their own game. And there was an¬ 
other reason.” 

Carney drew a second paper from the envelope, 
and passed it to the Judge. It was a brief note 


OWNERS UP 


143 

stating that if anything happened Carney his money, 
if the buckskin won, was to be turned over to the 
owner, Billy MacKay. 

When the judge lifted his eyes Carney said, with 
an apologetic little smile: “You see, the boy’s got 
the bug, and he’s up against it. Molly Burdan is 
keeping both him and his sister, and she can’t afford 
it.” 

Major Cummings coughed; and there was a little 
husky rasp in his voice as he said, quietly: 

“The objection to the rider of the buckskin horse 
is disallowed. This paper proves he is the legiti¬ 
mate owner and entitled to ride. Go down to the 
post.” 

A yell of delight went up from many throats. 
The men of Walla Walla, and the riders of the 
plains who had trooped in, were sports; they grasped 
the idea that the gambling clique had been caught 
at their own game; that the intrepid Bulldog had 
put one over on them. Besides, now they could 
see that the race was for blood. The heavy betting 
had started more than one whisper that perhaps 
it was a bluff; some of the Clatawa people believing 
in the invincibility of their horse, had hinted that 
perhaps there was a job on for the two other horses 
to foul Clatawa and one of them go on and win; 
though few would admit that Carney would be party 
to cold-decking the public. 

But accident had thrown the cards all on the 
table; it was to be a race to the finish, and the stakes 
represented real money. 



BULLDOG CARNEY 


*44 

Before they could start quite openly Carney 
stepped close to the rider of Horned Toad, and said, 
in even tones: 

“Slimy Red, if you pull any dirty work I’ll be here 
at the finish waiting for you. If you can win, win; 
but ride straight, or you’ll never ride again.” 

“I’ll be hangin’ round the finish post, too,” Ore¬ 
gon muttered abstractedly, but both Iron Jaw and! 
Snaggle Tooth could hear him. 

The three horses passed down the course, Clatawa 
sidling like a boat in a choppy sea, champing at his 
bit irritably, flecks of white froth snapping from 
his lips, and his tail twitching and swishing, indi¬ 
cating his excitable temperament; Horned Toad and 
Waster walked with that springy lift to the pasterns 
that indicated the perfection of breeding. Indians 
and cowboys raced up and down the plain, either 
side of the course, on their ponies, bandying words 
in a very ecstasy of delight. Old Walla Walla had 
come into its own; the greatest sport on earth was 
on in all its glory. 

After a time the three horses were seen to turn 
far down the course; they criss-crossed, and wove in 
and out a few times as they were being placed by 
the starter. The excitable Clatawa was giving 
trouble; sometimes he reared straight up; then, with 
a few bucking jumps, fought for his head. But the 
sinewy Snaky Dick was always his master. 

Atop the little buckskin the boy was scarce dis¬ 
cernible at that distance, as he sat low crouched 
over his horse’s wither. Almost like an equine 


OWNERS UP 


145 


statue stood Waster, so still, so sleepy-like, that those 
who had taken long odds about him felt a depres¬ 
sion. 

Horned Toad was scarcely still for an instant; 
his wary rider, Texas, was keeping him on his toes 
—not letting him chill out; but, like the buckskin’s 
jockey, his eye was always on the man with the gun. 
They were old hands at the game, both of them; 
they paid little attention to the antics of Clatawa— 
the starter was the whole works. 

Clatawa had broken away to be pulled up in thirty 
yards. Now, as he came back, his wily rider 
wheeled him suddenly short of the starting line, and 
the thing that he had cunningly planned came off. 
The starter, finger on trigger, was mentally pulled 
out of himself by this; his finger gripped spas¬ 
modically; those at the finish post saw a puff of 
smoke, and a white-nosed horse, well out in front, 
off to a flying start. 

The backers of Clatawa yelled in delight. 

“Good old Snaky Dick!” some one cried. 

“Clatawa beat the gun!” another roared. 

“They’ll never catch him!—never catch him! 
He’ll win off by himself 1” was droned. 

Behind, seemingly together, half the width of the 
track separating them, galloped the black and the 
buckskin. It looked as if Waster raced alone, as 
if he had lost his rider, so low along his wither and 
neck lay the boy, his weight eased high from the 
short stirrups. A hand on either side of the lean 
neck, he seemed a part of his mount. He was say- 



146 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


ing, “Ste-a-dy boy! stead-d-dy boy! stead-d-dy boy!’* 
a soft, low monotonous sing-song through his 
clinched teeth, his crouch discounting the handicap 
of a strong wind that was blowing down the track. 

He could feel the piece of smooth-moving ma¬ 
chinery under him flatten out in a long rhythmic 
stride, and his heart sang, for he knew it was the 
old Waster he had ridden to victory more than once; 
that same powerful stride that ate up the course with 
little friction. He was rating his horse. “Clatawa 
will come back,” he kept thinking: “Clatawa will 
come back!” * 

He himself, who had ridden hundreds of races, 
and working gallops and trials beyond count, knew 
that the chestnut was rating along of his own knowl¬ 
edge at a pace that would cover the mile-and-a-quar- 
ter in under 2.12. Methodically he was running his 
race. Clatawa was sprinting; he had cut out at a 
gait that would carry him a mile, if he could keep 
it up, close to 1.40. Too fast, for the track was 
slow, being turf. 

He watched Horned Toad; that was what he had 
to beat, he knew. 

Texas had reasoned somewhat along the same 
lines; but his brain was more flighty. As Clatawa 
opened a gap of a dozen lengths, running like a wild 
horse, Texas grew anxious; he shook up his mount 
and increased his pace. 

The buckskin reached into his bridle at this, as 
though he coaxed for a little more speed, but the 
boy called, “Steady, lad, steady!” and let Horned 


OWNERS UP 


147 

Toad creep away a length, two lengths; and always 
in front the white-faced horse, Clatawa, was gal¬ 
loping on and on with a high deer-like lope that was 
impressive. 

At the finish post people were acclaiming the name 
of Clatawa. They could see the little buckskin 
trailing fifteen lengths behind, and Horned Toad 
was between the two. 

Carney watched the race stoically. It was being 
run just as Billy had forecasted; there was nothing 
in this to shake his faith. 

Somebody cried out: “Buckskin’s out of it! I’ll 
lay a thousand to a hundred against him.” 

“I’ll take it,” Carney declared. 

“I’ll lay the same,” Snaggle Tooth yelled. 

“You’re on,” came from Carney. 

And even as they bet the buckskin had lost a 
length. 

Half-a-mile had been covered by the horses; three- 
quarters; and now it seemed to the watchers that 
the black was creeping up on Clatawa, the latter’s 
rider, who had been almost invisible, riding Indian 
fashion lying along the back of his horse, was now 
in view; his shoulders were up. Surely a quirt had 
switched the air once. 

Yes, the Toad was creeping up—his rider was 
making his run; they could see Texas’s arms sway 
as he shook up his mount. 

Why was the boy on the little buckskin riding like 
one asleep? Had he lost his whip—had he given 
up all idea of winning? 




148 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


They were at the mile: but a short quarter away. 

A moan went up from many throats, mixed with 
hoarse curses, for Clatawa was plainly in trouble; 
he was floundering; the monkey man on his back 
was playing the quirt against his ribs, the gyrations 
checking the horse instead of helping him. 

And the Toad, galloping true and straight, was 
but a length behind. 

Watching this battle, almost in hushed silence, 
gasping in the smothered tenseness, the throng went 
mentally blind to the little buckskin. Now some¬ 
body cried: 

“God! look at the other one cornin’! Look at 
him—lo-ook at him, men!” 

His voice ran up the scale to a shrill scream. 
Other eyes lengthened their vision, and their owners 
gasped. 

Clatawa seemed to be runnng backwards, so fast 
the little buckskin raced by him as he dropped out of 
it, beaten. 

And Horned Toad was but three lengths in front 
now. Three lengths? It was two—it was one. 
Now the buckskin’s nose rose and fell on the black’s 
quarters; now the mouse-coloured muzzle was at his 
girth; now their heads rose and fell together, as, 
stride for stride, they battled for the lead: Texas 
driving his mount with whip and spur, cutting the 
flanks of his horse with cruel blows in a frantic en¬ 
deavor to lift him home a winner. 

How still the boy sat Waster; how well he must 
know that he had the race won to nurse him like a 


OWNERS UP 


149 


babe. No swaying of the body to throw him out 
of stride; no flash of the whip to startle him—to 
break his heart; the brave little horse was doing it 
all himself. And the boy, creature of brains, was 
wise enough to sit still. 

They could hear the pound of hoofs on the turf 
like the beat of twin drums; they could see the eager 
strife in the faces of the two brave, stout-hearted 
thoroughbreds: and then the buckskin’s head nod¬ 
ding in front; his lean neck was clear of the black 
and he was galloping straight as an arrow. 

“The Toad is beat!” went up from a dozen 
throats. “The buckskin wins—the buckskin wins!” 
became a clamor. 

Pandemonium broke loose. It was stilled by a de¬ 
moniac cry, a curse, from some strong-voiced man. 
The black had swerved full in on to the buckskin; 
they saw Texas clutch at the rider. Curses; cries 
of “Foul!” rose; it was an angry roar like caged 
animals at war. 

Carney, watching, found his fingers rubbing the 
butt of his gun. The buckskin had been thrown out 
of his stride in the collision: he stumbled; his head 
shot down—almost to his knees he went: then he 
was galloping again, the two horses locked together. 

Fifty feet away from the finish post they were 
locked: twenty feet. 

The cries of the throng were hushed; they scarce 
breathed. 

Locked together they passed the post, the buck¬ 
skin’s neck in front. Their speed had been checked; 


150 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


in a dozen yards they were stopped, and the boy 
pitched headlong from the buckskin’s back, one foot 
still tangled in the martingale of Horned Toad. 

Men closed in frantically. A man—it was 
Oregon—twisted Carney’s gun skyward crying: 
‘‘Leave that coyote to the boys.” 

He was right. In vain Iron Jaw and Death-on- 
the-trail sought to battle back the tense-faced men 
who reached for Texas. Iron Jaw and Death-on- 
the-trail were swallowed up in a seething mass of 
clamoring devils. Gun play was out of the question: 
humans were like herrings packed in a barrel. 

Major Cummings, cool and quick-witted, had 
called shrilly “Troopers!” and a little cordon of 
men in cavalry uniform had Texas in the centre of 
a guarding circle. 

Carney, on his knees beside the boy, was guard¬ 
ing the lad from the mad, trampling, fighting men; 
striking with the butt of his pistol. And then a 
woman’s shrill voice rose clear above the tumult, 
crying: 

“Back, you cowards—you brutes: the boy is dy¬ 
ing: give him room—give him air!” 

Her bleached hair was down her back; her silk 
finery was torn like a battered flag; for she had 
fought her way through the crowd to the boy’s side. 

“Don’t lift him—he’s got a hemorrhage!” she 
shrilled, as Carney put his arms beneath the little 
lad. “Drive the men back—give him air!” she 
commanded; and turned Billy flat on his back, tear¬ 
ing from her shoulders a rich scarf to place beneath 


OWNERS UP 


151 


his head. The lad’s lips*, coated with red froth, 
twitched in a weak smile; he reached out a thin 
hand, and Molly, sitting at his head, drew it into 
her lap. 

“Just lie still, Billy. You’ll be all right, boy; 
just lie still; don’t speak,” she admonished. 

She could hear the lad’s throat click, click, click 
at each breath, the ominous tick tick, of “the bug’s” 
work; and at each half-stifled cough the red-tinged 
yeasty sputum bubbled up from the life well. 

The fighting clamor was dying down; shame¬ 
faced men were widening the circle about the lad 
and Molly. 

The judge’s voice was heard saying: 

“The buckskin won the race, gentlemen.” And 
he added, strong condemnation in his voice: “If 
Horned Toad had been first I would have disquali¬ 
fied him: it was a deliberate foul.” 

The cavalry men had got Texas away, mounted, 
and rushed him out to the barracks for protection. 

“Get a stretcher, someone, please,” Molly asked 
of the crowd. “Billy will be all right, but we must 
keep him flat on his back. 

“You’ll be all right, Billy,” she added, bending 
her head till her lips touched the boy’s forehead, and 
her mass of peroxided hair hid the hot tears that 
fell from the blue eyes that many thought only ca¬ 
pable of cupidity and guile. 


IV 


THE GOLF WOLF 

All day long Bulldog Carney had found, where 
the trail was soft, the odd imprint of that goblined 
inturned hoof. All day in the saddle, riding a trail 
that winds in and out among rocks, and trees, and 
cliffs monotonously similar, the hush of the everlast¬ 
ing hills holding in subjection man’s soul, the tower¬ 
ing giants of embattled rocks thrusting up towards 
God’s dome pigmying to nothingness that rat, a 
man, produces a comatose condition of mind; man 
becomes a child, incapable of little beyond the recog¬ 
nition of trivial things; the erratic swoop of a bird, 
the sudden roar of a cataract, the dirge-like sigh of 
wind through the harp of a giant pine. 

And so, curiously, Bulldog’s fancy had toyed aim¬ 
lessly with the history of the cayuse that owned that 
inturned left forefoot. Always where the hoof’s 
imprint lay was the flat track of a miner’s boot, the 
hob nails denting the black earth with stolid persist¬ 
ency. But the owner of the miner’s boot seemed of 
little moment; it was the abnormal hoof that, by a 
strange perversity, haunted Carney. 

The man was probably a placer miner coming 
down out of the Eagle Hills, leading a pack pony 

152 


THE GOLF WOLF 


153 


that carried his duffel and, perhaps, a small fortune 
in gold. Of course, like Carney, he was heading 
for steel, for the town of Bucking Horse. 

Toward evening, as Carney rode down a winding 
trail that led to the ford of Singing Water, round¬ 
ing an abrupt turn the mouth of a huge cave yawned 
in the side of a cliff away to his left. Something of 
life had melted into its dark shadow that had the 
semblance of a man; or it might have been a bear 
or a wolf. Lower down in the valley that was 
called the Valley of the Grizzley’s Bridge, his buck¬ 
skin shied, and with a snort of fear left the trail and 
elliptically came back to it twenty yards beyond. 

In the centre of the ellipse, on the trail, stood a 
gaunt form, a huge dog-wolf. He was a sinister 
figure, his snarling lips curled back from strong yel¬ 
low fangs, his wide powerful head low hung, and 
the black bristles on his back erect in challenge. 

The whole thing was weird, uncanny; a single 
wolf to stand his ground in daylight was unusual. 

Instinctively Bulldog reined in the buckskin, and 
half turning in the saddle, with something of a shud¬ 
der, searched the ground at the wolf’s feet dreading 
to find something. But there was nothing. 

The dog-wolf, with a snarling twist of his head, 
sprang into the bushes just as Carney dropped a 
hand to his gun; his quick eye had seen the move¬ 
ment. 

Carney had meant to camp just beyond the ford 
of Singing Water, but the usually placid buckskin 
was fretful, nervous. 


154 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


A haunting something was in the air; Carney, him¬ 
self, felt it. The sudden apparition of the wolf 
could not account for this mental unrest, either in 
man or beast, for they were both inured to the trail, 
and a wolf meant little beyond a skulking beast that 
a pistol shot would drive away. 

High above the rider towered Old Squaw Moun¬ 
tain. It was like a battered feudal castle, on its 
upper reaches turret and tower and bastion catching 
vagrant shafts of gold and green, as, beyond, in the 
far west, a flaming sun slid down behind the Sel¬ 
kirks. Where he rode in the twisted valley a chill 
had struck the air, suggesting vaults, dungeons; the 
giant ferns hung heavy like the plumes of knights 
drooping with the death dew. A reaching stretch 
of salmon bushes studded with myriad berries that 
gleamed like topaz jewels hedged on both sides the 
purling, frothing stream that still held the green tint 
of its glacier birth. 

Many times in his opium running Carney had 
swung along this wild trail almost unconscious of 
the way, his mind travelling far afield; now back to 
the old days of club life; to the years of army rou¬ 
tine; to the bright and happy scenes where rich- 
gowned women and cultured men laughed and ban¬ 
tered with him. At times it was the newer rough 
life of the West; the ever-present warfare of man 
against man; the yesterday where he had won, or 
the to-morrow where he might cast a losing hazard 
—where the dice might turn groggily from a six- 
spotted side to a deuce, and the thrower take a fall. 


THE GOLF WOLF 


155 


But to-night, as he rode, something of depression, 
of a narrow environment, of an evil one, was astride 
the withers of his horse; the mountains seemed to 
close in and oppress him. The buckskin, too, swung 
his heavy lop ears irritably back and forth, back and 
forth. Sometimes one ear was pricked forward as 
though its owner searched the beyond, the now 
glooming valley that, at a little distance, was but a 
blur, the other ear held backward as though it 
would drink in the sounds of pursuit. 

Pursuit! that was the very thing; instinctively the 
rider turned in his saddle, one hand on the horn, 
and held his piercing gray eyes on the back trail, 
searching for the embodiment of this phantasy. The 
unrest had developed that far into conception, some¬ 
thing evil hovered on his trail, man or beast. But 
he saw nothing but the swaying kaleidoscope of tum¬ 
bling forest shadows; rocks that, half gloomed, took 
fantastic forms; bushes that swayed with the rolling 
gait of a grizzly. 

The buckskin had quickened his pace as if, tired 
though he was, he would go on beyond that valley 
of fear before they camped. 

Where the trail skirted the brink of a cliff that 
had a drop of fifty feet, Carney felt the horse trem¬ 
ble, and saw him hug the inner wall; and, when they 
had rounded the point, the buckskin, with a snort of 
relief, clamped the snaffle in his teeth and broke into 
a canter. 

“I wonder—by Jove!” and Bulldog, pulling the 



156 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


buckskin to a stand, slipped from his back, and 
searched the black-loamed trail. 

“I believe you’re right, Pat,” he said, addressing 
the buckskin; “something happened back there.” 

He walked for a dozen paces ahead of the horse, 
his keen gray eyes on the earth. He stopped and 
rubbed his chin, thinking—thinking aloud. 

“There are tracks, Patsy boy—moccasins; but 
we’ve lost our gunboat-footed friend. What do you 
make of that, Patsy—gone over the cliff? But that 
damn wolf’s pugs are here; he’s travelled up and 
down. By gad! two of them!” 

Then, in silence, Carney moved along the way, 
searching and pondering; cast into a curious, super¬ 
stitious mood that he could not shake off. The in- 
turned hoof-print had vanished, so the owner of the 
big feet that carried hob-nailed boots did not ride. 

Each time that Carney stopped to bend down in 
study of the trail the buckskin pushed at him fret¬ 
fully with his soft muzzle and rattled the snaffle 
against his bridle teeth. 

At last Carney stroked the animal’s head reassur¬ 
ingly, saying: “You’re quite right, pal—it’s none 
of our business. Besides, we’re a pair of old gran¬ 
nies imagining things.” 

But as he lifted to the saddle, Bulldog, like the 
horse, felt a compelling inclination to go beyond the 
Valley of the Grizzley’s Bridge to camp for the 
night. 

Even as they climbed to a higher level of flat 
land, from back on the trail that was now lost in the 


THE GOLF WOLF 


157 


deepening gloom, came the howl of a wolf; and 
then, from somewhere beyond floated the answering 
call of the dog-wolf’s mate—a whimpering, hungry 
note in her weird wail. 

“Bleat, damn you!” Carney cursed softly; “if you 
bother us I’ll sit by with a gun and watch Patsy boy 
kick you to death.” 

As if some genii of the hills had taken up and 
sent on silent waves his challenge, there came filter¬ 
ing through the pines and birch a snarling yelp. 

“By gad!” and Carney cocked his ear, pulling the 
horse to a stand. 

Then in the heavy silence of the wooded hills he 
pushed on again muttering, “There’s something 
wrong about that wolf howl—it’s different.” 

Where a big pine had showered the earth with 
cones till the covering was soft, and deep, and 
springy, and odorous like a perfumed mattress of 
velvet, he hesitated; but the buckskin, in the finer 
animal reasoning, pleaded with little impatient steps 
and shakes of the head that they push on. 

Carney yielded, saying softly: “Go on, kiddie 
boy; peace of mind is good dope for a sleep.” 

So it was ten o’clock when the two travellers, Car¬ 
ney and Pat, camped in an open, where the moon, 
like a silver mirror, bathed the earth in reassuring 
light. Here the buckskin had come to a halt, filled 
his lungs with the perfumed air in deep draughts, 
and turning his head half round had waited for his 
partner to dismount. 

It was curious this man of steel nerve and flaw- 



158 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


less courage feeling at all the guidance of unknown 
threatenings, unexplainable disquietude. He did not 
even build a fire; but choosing a place where the* 
grass was rich he spread his blanket beside the 
horse’s picket pin. 

Bulldog’s life had provided him with different 
sleeping moods; it was a curious subconscious mat¬ 
ter of mental adjustment before he slipped away 
from the land of knowing. Sometimes he could 
sleep like a tired laborer, heavily, unresponsive to 
the noise of turmoil; at other times, when deep 
sleep might cost him his life, his senses hovered so 
close to consciousness that a dried leaf scurrying 
before the wind would call him to alert action. So 
now he lay on his blanket, sometimes over the bor¬ 
der of spirit land, and sometimes conscious of the 
buckskin’s pull at the crisp grass. Once he came 
wide awake, with no movement but the lifting of his 
eyelids. He had heard nothing; and now the gray 
eyes, searching the moonlit plain, saw nothing. Yet 
within was a full consciousness that there was some¬ 
thing—not close, but hovering there beyond. 

The buckskin also knew. He had been lying 
down, but with a snort of discontent his forequarters 
went up and he canted to his feet with a spring of 
wariness. Perhaps it was the wolves. 

But after a little Carney knew it was not the 
wolves; they, cunning devils, would have circled be¬ 
yond his vision, and the buckskin, with his delicate 
scent, would have swung his head the full circle of 


THE GOLF WOLF 


159 


the compass; but he stood facing down the back 
trail; the thing was there, watching. 

After that Carney slept again, lighter if possible, 
thankful that he had yielded to the wisdom of the 
horse and sought the open. 

Half a dozen times there was this gentle transi¬ 
tion from the sleep that was hardly a sleep, to a full 
acute wakening. And then the paling sky told that 
night was slipping off to the western ranges, and 
that beyond the Rockies, to the east, day was sleepily 
travelling in from the plains. 

The horse was again feeding; and Carney, shak¬ 
ing off the lethargy of his broken sleep, gathered 
some dried stunted bushes, and, building a little fire, 
made a pot of tea; confiding to the buckskin as he 
mounted that he considered himself no end of a 
superstitious ass to have bothered over a nothing. 

Not far from where Carney had camped the trail 
he followed turned to the left to sweep around a 
mountain, and here it joined, for a time, the trail 
running from Fort Steel west toward the Kootenay. 
The sun, topping the Rockies, had lifted from the 
earth the graying shadows, and now Carney saw, as 
he thought, the hoof-prints of the day before. 

There was a feeling of relief with this discovery. 
There had been a morbid disquiet in his mind; a 
mental conviction that something had happened that 
intoed cayuse and his huge-footed owner. Now all 
the weird fancies of the night had been just a vagary 
of mind. Where the trail was earthed, holding clear 
impressions, he dismounted, and walked ahead of 


160 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


the buckskin, reading the lettered clay. Here and 
there was imprinted a moccasined foot; once there 
was the impression of boots; but they were not the 
huge imprints of hob-nailed soles. They showed 
that a man had dismounted, and then mounted again; 
and the cayuse had not an inturned left forefoot; 
also the toe wall of one hind foot was badly broken. 
His stride was longer, too; he did not walk with 
the short step of a pack pony. 

The indefinable depression took possession of 
Bulldog again; he tried to shake it off—it was child¬ 
ish. The huge-footed one perhaps was a prospector, 
and had wandered up into some one of the gulches 
looking for gold. That was objecting Reason for¬ 
mulating an hypothesis. 

Then presently Carney discovered the confusing 
element of the same cayuse tracks heading the other 
way, as if the man on horseback had travelled both 
up and down the trail. 

Where the Bucking Horse trail left the Kootenay 
trail after circling the mountain, Carney saw that 
the hoof prints continued toward Kootenay. And 
there were a myriad of tracks; many mounted men 
had swung from the Bucking Horse trail to the 
Kootenay path; they had gone and returned, for the 
hoof prints that toed toward Bucking Horse lay on 
top. 

This also was strange; men did not ride out from 
the sleepy old town in a troop like cavalry. There 
was but one explanation, the explanation of the 
West—those mounted men had ridden after some- 


THE GOLF WOLF 


161 


body—had trailed somebody who was wanted quick. 

This crescendo to his associated train of thought 
obliterated mentally the goblin-footed cayuse, the 
huge hob-nailed boot, the something at the cliff, the 
hovering oppression of the night—everything. 

Carney closed his mind to the torturing riddle and 
rode, sometimes humming an Irish ballad of Man- 
gin’s. 

It was late afternoon when he rode into Bucking 
Horse; and Bucking Horse was in a ferment. 

Seth Long’s hotel, the Gold Nugget, was the caul¬ 
dron in which the waters of unrest seethed. 

A lynching was in a state of almost completion, 
with Jeanette Holt’s brother, Harry, elected to play 
the leading part of the lynched. Through the defer¬ 
ence paid to his well-known activity when hostile 
events were afoot, Carney was cordially drawn into 
the maelstrom of ugly-tempered men. 

Jeanette’s brother may be said to have suffered 
from a preponderance of opinion against him, for 
only Jeanette, and with less energy, Seth Long, were 
on his side. All Bucking Horse, angry Bucking 
Horse, was for stringing him up tout de suite . The 
times were propitious for this entertainment, for 
Sergeant Black, of the Mounted Police, was over at 
Fort Steel, or somewhere else on patrol, and the 
law was in the keeping of the mob. 

Ostensibly Carney ranged himself on the side of 
law and order. That is what he meant when, lean¬ 
ing carelessly against the Nugget bar, one hand on 


162 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


his hip, chummily close to the butt of his six-gun, he 
said: 

“This town had got a pretty good name, as towns 
go in the mountains, and my idea of a man that’s too 
handy at the lynch game is that he’s a pretty poor 
sport.” 

“How’s that, Bulldog?” Kootenay Jim snapped. 

“He’s a poor sport,” Carney drawled, “because 
he’s got a hundred to one the best of it—first, last, 
and always; he isn’t in any danger when he starts, 
because it’s a hundred men to one poor devil, who, 
generally, isn’t armed, and he knows that at the 
finish his mates will perjure themselves to save their 
own necks. I’ve seen one or two lynch mobs and 
they were generally egged on by men who were 
yellow.” 

Carney’s gray eyes looked out over the room full 
of angry men with a quiet thoughtful steadiness that 
forced home the conviction that he was wording a 
logic he would demonstrate. No other man in that 
room could have stood up against that plank bar 
and declared himself without being called quick. 

“You hear fust what this rat done, Bulldog, then 
we’ll hear what you’ve got to say,” Kootenay 
growled. 

“That’s well spoken, Kootenay,” Bulldog an¬ 
swered. “I’m fresh in off the trail, and perhaps I’m 
quieter than the rest of you, but first, being fresh in 
off the trail, there’s a little custom to be observed.” 

With a sweep of his hand Carney waved a salute 
to a line of bottles behind the bar. 


THE GOLF WOLF 


163 

Jeanette, standing in the open door that led from 
the bar to the dining-room, gripping the door till 
her nails sank into the pine, felt hot tears gush into 
her eyes. How wise, how cool, this brave Bulldog 
that she loved so well. She had had no chance to 
plead with him for help. He had just come into that 
murder-crazed throng, and the words had been 
hurled at him from a dozen mouths that her brother 
Harry—Harry the waster, the no-good, the gam¬ 
bler—had been found to be the man who had mur¬ 
dered returning miners on the trail for their gold, 
and that they were going to string him up. 

And now there he stood, her god of a man, Bull¬ 
dog Carney, ranged on her side, calm, and brave. 
It was the first glint of hope since they had brought 
her brother in, bound to the back of a cayuse. She 
had pushed her way amongst the men, but they were 
like wolves; she had pleaded and begged for delay, 
but the evidence was so overwhelming; absolutely 
hopeless it had appeared. But now something whis¬ 
pered “Hope”. 

It was curious the quieting effect that single drink 
at the bar had; the magnetism of Carney seemed to 
envelop the men, to make them reasonable. Ordi¬ 
narily they were reasonable men. Bulldog knew 
this, and he played the card of reason. 

For the two or three gun men—Kootenay Jim, 
John of Slocan, and Denver Ike—Carney had his 
own terrible personality and his six-gun; he could 
deal with those three toughs if necessary. 


164 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


“Now tell me, boys, what started this hellery,” 
Carney asked when they had drunk. 

The story was fired at him; if a voice hesitated, 
another took up the narrative. 

Miners returning from the gold field up in the 
Eagle Hills had mysteriously disappeared, never 
turning up at Bucking Horse. A man would have 
left the Eagle Hills, and somebody drifting in from 
the same place later on, would ask for him at Buck¬ 
ing Horse—nobody had seen him. 

Then one after another two skeletons had been 
found on the trail; the bodies had been devoured 
by wolves. 

“And wolves don’t eat gold—not what you’d no¬ 
tice, as a steady chuck,” Kootenay Jim yelped. 

“Men wolves do,” Carney thrust back, and his 
gray eyes said plainly, “That’s your food, Jim.” 

“Meanin’ what by that, pard?” Kootenay snarled, 
his face evil in a threat. 

“Just what the words convey—you sort them out, 
Kootenay.” 

But Miner Graham interposed. “We got kinder 
leary about this wolf game, Carney, ’cause they ain’t 
bothered nobody else ’cept men packin’ in their 
winnin’s from the Eagle Hills; and four days ago 
Caribou Dave—here he is sittin’ right here—he ar¬ 
rives packin’ Fourteen-foot Johnson—that is, all 
that’s left of Fourteen-foot.” 

“Johnson was my pal,” Caribou Dave interrupted, 
a quaver in his voice, “and he leaves the Eagle Nest 
two days ahead of me, packin’ a big clean-up of gold 


THE GOLF WOLF 


165 


on a cayuse. He was goin’ to mooch aroun’ Buckin’ 
Horse till I creeps in afoot, then we was goin’ out. 
We been together a good many years, ol’ Fourteen- 
foot and me.” 

Something seemed to break in Caribou’s voice and 
Graham added: “Dave finds his mate at the foot of 
a cliff.” 

Carney started; and instinctively Kootenay’s hand 
dropped to his gun, thinking something was going 
to happen. 

“I dunno just what makes me look there for 
Fourteen-foot, Bulldog,” Caribou Dave explained. 
“I was cornin’ along the trail seein’ the marks of 
’em damn big feet of hisn, and they looked good to 
me—I guess I was gettin’ kinder homesick for him; 
when I’d camp I’d go out and paw ’em tracks; ’twas 
kinder like shakin’ hands. We been together a good 
many years, buckin’ the mountains and the plains, 
and sometimes havin’ a bit of fun. I’m cornin’ 
along, as I says, and I sees a kinder scrimmage like, 
as if his old tan-colored cayuse had got gay, or took 
the blind staggers, or somethin’; there was a lot of 
tracks. But I give up thinkin’ it out, ’cause I knowed 
if the damn cayuse had jack-rabbited any, Fourteen- 
foot’d pick him and his load up and carry him. 
Then I see some wolf tracks—dang near as big as a 
steer’s they was—and I figger Fourteen-foot’s had a 
set-to with a couple of ’em timber coyotes and 
lammed hell’s delight out of ’em, ’cause he could’ve 
done it. Then I’m follerin’ the cayuse’s trail agen, 
pickin’ it up here and there, and all at onct it jumps 


166 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


me that the big feet is missin’. Sure I natural figger 
Johnson’s got mussed up a bit with the wolves and 
is ridin’; but there’s the dang wolf tracks agen. 
And some moccasin feet has been passierin’ along, 
too. Then the hoss tracks cuts out just same’s if 
he’d spread his wings and gone up in the air—they 
just ain’t.” 

“Then Caribou gets a hunch and goes back and 
peeks over the cliff,” Miner Graham added, for old 
David had stopped speaking to bite viciously at a 
black plug of tobacco to hide his feelings. 

“I dunno what made me do it,” Caribou inter¬ 
rupted; “it was just same’s Fourteen-foot’s callin’ 
me. There ain’t nobody can make me believe that 
if two men paddles together twenty years, had their 
little fights, and show-downs, and still sticks, that 
one of ’em is going to cut clean out just ’cause he 
goes over the Big Divide—’tain’t natural. I tell 
you, boys, Fourteen-foot’s callin’ me—that’s what 
he is, when I goes back.” 

Then Graham had to take up the narrative, for 
Caribou, heading straight for the bar, pointed 
dumbly at a black bottle. 

“Yes, Carney,” Graham said, “Caribou packs into 
Buckin’ Horse on his back what was left of Four¬ 
teen-foot, and there wasn’t no gold and no sign of 
the cayuse. Then we swarms out, a few of us, and 
picks up cayuse tracks most partic’lar -where the 
Eagle Hills trail hits the trail for Kootenay. And 
when we overhaul the cayuse that’s layin’ down ’em 


THE GOLF WOLF 167 

tracks it’s Fourteen-foot’s hawse, and a-ridin’ him 
is Harry Holt.” 

“And he’s got the gold you was talkin’ ’bout 
wolves eatin’, Bulldog,” Kootenay Jim said with a 
sneer. “He was hangin’ ’round here busted, cleaned 
to the bone, and there he’s a-ridin’ Fourteen-foot’s 
cayuse, with lots of gold.” 

“That’s the whole case then, is it, boys?” Carney 
asked quietly. 

“Ain’t it enough?” Kootenay Jim snarled. 

“No, it isn’t. You were tried for murder once 
yourself, Kootenay, and you got off, though every¬ 
body knew it was the dead man’s money in your 
pocket. You got off because nobody saw you kill 
the man, and the circumstantial evidence gave you 
the benefit of the doubt.” 

“I ain’t bein’ tried for this, Bulldog. Your 
bringin’ up old scores might get you in wrong.” 

“You’re not being tried, Kootenay, but another 
man is, and I say he’s got to have a fair chance. 
You bring him here, boys, and let me hear his story; 
that’s only fair, men amongst men. Because I give 
you fair warning, boys, if this lynching goes through, 
and you’re in wrong, I’m going to denounce you; not 
one of you will get away —not one!” 

“We’ll bring him, Bulldog,” Graham said; “what 
you say is only fair, but swing he will.” 

Jeanette’s brother had been locked in the pen in 
the log police barracks. He was brought into the 
Gold Nugget, and his defence was what might be 
called powerfully weak. It was simply a statement 



168 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


that he had bought the cayuse from an Indian on the 
trail outside Bucking Horse. He refused to say 
where he had got the gold, simply declaring that he 
had killed nobody, had never seen Fourteen-foot 
Johnson, and knew nothing about the murder. 

Something in the earnestness of the man convinced 
Carney that he was innocent. However, that was, 
so far as Carney’s action was concerned, a minor 
matter; it was Jeanette’s brother, and he was going 
to save him from being lynched if he had to light 
the roomful of men—there was no doubt whatever 
about that in his mind. 

“I can’t say, boys,” Carney began, “that you can 
be blamed for thinking you’ve got the right man.” 

“That’s what we figgered,” Graham declared. 

“But you’ve not gone far enough in sifting the 
evidence if you sure don’t want to lynch an innocent 
man. The only evidence you have is that you caught 
Harry on Johnson’s cayuse. How do you know it’s 
Johnson’s cayuse?” 

“Caribou says it is,” Graham answered. 

“And Harry says it was an Indian’s cayuse,” Car¬ 
ney affirmed. 

“He most natural just ordinar’ly lies about it,” 
Kootenay ventured viciously. 

“Where’s the cayuse?” Carney asked. 

“Out in the stable,” two or three voices answered. 

“I want to see him. Mind, boys, I’m working for 
you as much as for that poor devil you want to string 
up, because if you get the wrong man I’m going to 


THE GOLF WOLF 169 

denounce you, that’s as sure as God made little 
apples.” 

His quiet earnestness was compelling. All the 
fierce heat of passion had gone from the men; there 
still remained the grim determination that, con¬ 
vinced they were right, nothing but the death of 
some of them would check. But somehow they felt 
that the logic of conviction would swing even Carney 
to their side. 

So, without even a word from a leader, they all 
thronged out to the stable yard; the cayuse was 
brought forth, and, at Bulldog’s request, led up and 
down the yard, his hoofs leaving an imprint in the 
bare clay at every step. It was the footprints alone 
that interested Carney. He studied them intently, 
a horrible dread in his heart as he searched for that 
goblined hoof that inturned. But the two forefeet 
left saucer-like imprints, that, though they were both 
slightly intoed, as is the way of a cayuse, neither 
was like the curious goblined track that had so 
fastened on his fancy out in the Valley of the 
Grizzley’s Bridge. 

And also there was the broken toe wall of the 
hind foot that he had seen on the newer trail. 

He turned to Caribou Dave, asking, “What makes 
you think this is Johnson’s pack horse?” 

“There ain’t no thinkin’ ’bout it,” Caribou an¬ 
swered with asperity. “When I see my boots I don’t 
think they’re mine, I just most natur’ly figger they 
are and pull ’em on. I’d know that dun-colored rat 
if I see him in a wild herd.” 


170 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


“And yet,” Carney objected in an even tone, “this 
isn’t the cayuse that Johnson toted out his duffel 
from the Eagle Hills on.” 

A cackle issued from Kootenay Jim’s long, 
scraggy neck: 

“That settles it, boys; Bulldog passes the buck 
and the game’s over. Caribou is just an ord’nary 
liar, ’cordin’ to Judge Carney.” 

“Caribou is perfectly honest in his belief,” Carney 
declared. “There isn’t more than half a dozen 
colors for horses, and there are a good many thou¬ 
sand horses in this territory, so a great many of them 
are the same color. And the general structure of 
different cayuses is as similar as so many wheel¬ 
barrows. That brand on his shoulder may be a C, 
or a new moon, or a flapjack.” 

He turned to Caribou: “What brand had Four¬ 
teen-foot’s cayuse?” 

“I don’t know,” the old chap answered surlily, 
“but it was there same place it’s restin’ now—it ain’t 
shifted none since you fingered it.” 

“That won’t do, boys,” Carney said; “if Caribou 
can’t swear to a horse’s brand, how can he swear to 
the beast?” 

“And if Fourteen-foot’d come back and stand up 
here and swear it was his hawse, that wouldn’t do 
either, would it, Bulldog?” And Kootenay cackled. 

“Johnson wouldn’t say so—he’d know better. 
His cayuse had a club foot, an inturned left fore¬ 
foot. I picked it up, here and there, for miles back 
on the trail, sometimes fair on top of Johnson’s big 


THE GOLF WOLF 


171 

boot track, and sometimes Johnson’s were on top 
when he travelled behind.” 

The men stared; and Graham asked: ‘‘What do 
you say to that, Caribou? Did you ever map out 
Fourteen-foot’s cayuse—what his travellers was 
like?” 

“I never looked at his feet—there wasn’t no 
reason to; I was minin’.” 

“There’s another little test we can make,” Carney 
suggested. “Have you got any of Johnson’s be¬ 
longings—a coat?” 

“We got his coat,” Graham answered; “it was 
pretty bad wrecked with the wolves, and we kinder 
fixed the remains up decent in a suit of store clothes.” 

At Carney’s request the coat was brought, a rough 
Mackinaw, and from one of the men present he got 
a miner’s magnifying glass, saying, as he examined 
the coat: 

“This ought, naturally, to be pretty well filled 
with hairs from that cayuse of Johnson’s; and while 
two horses may look alike, there’s generally a differ¬ 
ence in the hair.” 

Carney’s surmise proved correct; dozens of short 
hairs were imbedded in the coat, principally in the 
sleeves. Then hair was plucked from many differ¬ 
ent parts of the cayuse’s body, and the two lots were 
viewed through the glass. They were different. 
The hair on the cayuse standing in the yard was 
coarser, redder, longer, for its Indian owner had let 
it run like a wild goat; and Fourteen-foot had given 
his cayuse considerable attention. There were also 





172 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


some white hairs in the coat warp, and on this cayuse 
there was not a single white hair to be seen. 

When questioned Caribou would not emphatically 
declare that there had not been a star or a white 
Stripe in the forehead of Johnson’s horse. 

These things caused one or two of the men to 
waver, for if it were not Johnson’s cayuse, if Cari¬ 
bou were mistaken, there was no direct evidence to 
connect Harry Holt with the murder. 

Kootenay Jim objected that the examination of 
the hair was nothing; that Carney, like a clever 
lawyer, was trying to get the murderer off on a tech¬ 
nicality. As to the club foot they had only Carney’s 
guess, whereas Caribou had never seen any club foot 
on Johnson’s horse. 

“We can prove that part of it,” Graham said; 
“we can go back on the trail and see what Bulldog 
seen.” 

Half a dozen men approved this, saying: “We’ll 
put off the hangin’ and go back.” 

But Carney objected. 

When he did so Kootenay Jim and John from 
Slocan raised a howl of derision, Kootenay saying: 
“When we calls his bluff he throws his hand in the 
discard. There ain’t no club foot anywheres; it’s 
just a game to gain time to give this coyote, Holt, a 
chance to make a get-away. We’re bein’ buffaloed 
-^-we’re wastin’ time. We gets a murderer on a 
murdered man’s hawse, with the gold in his pockets, 
and Bulldog Carney puts some hawse hairs under a 
glass, hands out a pipe dream bout some ghost 


THE GOLF WOLF 


173 


tracks back on the trail, and reaches out to grab the 
pot. Hell! you’d think we was a damn lot of tender- 
feet.” 

This harangue had an effect on the angry men, 
but seemingly none whatever upon Bulldog, for he 
said quietly: 

“I don’t want a troop of men to go back on the 
trail just now, because I’m going out myself to bring 
the murderer in. I can get him alone, for if he 
does see me he won’t think that I’m after him, sim¬ 
ply that I’m trailing. But if a party goes they’ll 
never see him. He’s a clever devil, and will make 
his get-away. All I want on this evidence is that 
you hold Holt till I get back. I’ll bring the foreleg 
of that cayuse with a club foot, for there’s no doubt 
the murderer made sure that the wolves got him 
too.” 

They had worked back into the hotel by now, 
and, inside, Kootenay Jim and his two cronies had 
each taken a big drink of whisky, whispering to¬ 
gether as they drank. 

As Carney and Graham entered, Kootenay’s 
shrill voice was saying: 

“We’re bein’ flim-flammed—played for a lot of 
kids. There ain’t been a damn thing ’cept lookin’ 
at some hawse hairs through a glass. Men has been 
murdered on the trail, and who done it—somebody. 
Caribou’s mate was murdered, and we find his gold 
on a man that was stony broke here, was bummin’ 
on the town, spongin’ on Seth Long; he hadn’t two 
bits. And ’cause his sister stands well with Bulldog 






BULLDOG CARNEY 


174 

he palms this three-card trick with hawse hairs, and 
we got to let the murderer go.” 

“You lie, Kootenay!” The words had come from 
Jeanette. “My brother wouldn’t tell you where he 
got the gold—he’d let you hang him first; but I will 
tell. I took it out of Seth’s safe and gave it to him 
to get out of the country, because I knew that you 
and those two other hounds, Slocan and Denver, 
would murder him some night because he knocked 
you down for insulting me.” 

“That’s a lie!” Kootenay screamed; “you and 
Bulldog ’re runnin’ mates and you’ve put this up.” 

There was a cry of warning from Slocan, and 
Kootenay whirled, drawing his gun. As he did so 
him arm dropped and his gun clattered to the floor, 
for Carney’s bullet had splintered its butt, inci¬ 
dentally clipping away a finger. And the same 
weapon in Carney’s hand was covering Slocan and 
Denver as they stood side by side, their backs to 
the bar. 

No one spoke; almost absolute stillness hung in 
the air for five seconds. Half the men in the room 
had drawn, but no one pulled a trigger—no one 
spoke. 

It was Carney who broke the silence: 

“Jeanette, bind that hound’s hand up; and you, 
Seth, send for the doctor—I guess he’s too much of 
a man to be In this gang.” 

A wave of relieT K &‘wept over the room; men 
coughed or spat a s* tfee ; Tension slipped, dropping 
their guns back into r, hblsters. 


THE GOLF WOLF 


175 


Kootenay Jim, cowed by the damaged hand, hold¬ 
ing it in his left, followed Jeanette out of the room. 

As the girl disappeared Harry Holt, who had 
stood between the two men, his wrists bound behind 
his back, said: 

“My sister told a lie to shield me. I stole the 
gold myself from Seth’s safe. I wanted to get out 
of this hell hole ’cause I knew I’d got to kill Koo¬ 
tenay or he’d get me. That’s why I didn’t tell before 
where the gold come from.” 

“Here, Seth,” Carney called as Long came back 
into the room, “you missed any gold—what do you 
know about Holt’s story that he got the gold from 
your safe?” 

“I ain’t looked—I don’t keep no close track of 
what’s in that iron box; I jus’ keep the key, and a 
couple of bags might get lifted and I wouldn’t know. 
If Jeanette took a bag or two to stake her brother, 
I guess she’s got a right to, ’cause we’re pardners 
in all I got.” 

“I took the key when Seth was sleeping,” Harry 
declared. “Jeanette didn’t know I was going to 
take it.” 

“But your sister claims she took it, so how’d she 
say that if it isn’t a frame-up?” Graham asked. 

“I told her just as I was pullin’ out, so she 
wouldn’t let Seth get in wrong by blamin’ her or 
somebody else.” 

“Don’t you see, boys,” Carney interposed, “if 
you’d swung off this man, and all this was proved 
afterwards, you’d be in wrong? You didn’t find on 


176 BULLDOG CARNEY 

Harry a tenth of the gold Fourteen-foot likely 
had.” 

“That skunk hid it,” Caribou declared; “he just 
kept enough to get out with.” 

Poor old Caribou was thirsting for revenge; in 
his narrowed hate he would have been satisfied if 
the party had pulled a perfect stranger off a pass¬ 
ing train and lynched him; it would have been a 
quid pro quo. He felt that he was being cheated 
by the superior cleverness of Bulldog Carney. He 
had seen miners beaten out of their just gold claims 
by professional sharks; the fine reasoning, the micro¬ 
scopic evidence of the hairs, the intoed hoof, all 
these things were beyond him. He was honest in 
his conviction that the cayuse was Johnson’s, and 
feared that the man who had killed his friend would 
slip through their fingers. 

“It’s just like this, boys,” he said, “me and Four- 
teen-foot was together so long that if he was away 
somewhere I’d know he was cornin’ back a day afore 
he hit camp—I’d feel it, same’s I turned back on 
the trail there and found him all chawed up by the 
wolves. There wasn’t no reason to look over that 
cliff only ol’ Fourteen-foot a-callin’ me. And now 
he’s a-tellin’ me inside that that skunk there mur¬ 
dered him when he wasn’t lookin’. And if you 
chaps ain’t got the sand to push this to a finish I’ll 
get the man that killed Fourteen-foot; he won’t 
never get away. If you boys is just a pack of 
coyotes that howls good and plenty till somebody 
calls ’em, and is goin’ to slink away with your tails 


THE GOLF WOLF 


177 


between your legs for fear you’ll be rounded up 
for the lynchin’, you can turn this murderer loose 
right now—you don’t need to worry what’ll happen 
to him. I’ll be too danged lonesome without Four- 
teen-foot to figger what’s cornin’ to me. Turn him 
loose—take the hobbles off him. You fellers go 
home and pull your blankets over your heads so’s 
you won’t see no ghosts.” 

Carney’s sharp gray eyes watched the old fa¬ 
natic’s every move; he let him talk till he had ex¬ 
hausted himself with his passionate words; then he 
said: 

“Caribou, you’re some man. You’d go through 
a whole tribe of Indians for a chum. You believe 
you’re right, and that’s just what I’m trying to do 
in this, find out who is right—we don’t want to 
wrong anybody. You can come back on the trail 
with me, and I’ll show you the club-footed tracks; 
I’ll let you help me get the right man.” 

The old chap turned his humpy shoulders, and 
looked at Carney out of bleary, weasel eyes set be¬ 
neath shaggy brows; then he shrilled: 

“I’ll see you in hell fust; I’ve heerd o’ you, Bull¬ 
dog; I’ve heerd you had a wolverine skinned seven 
ways of the jack for tricks, and by the rings on a 
Big Horn I believe it. You know that while I’m 
here that jack rabbit ain’t goin’ to get away—and 
he ain’t; you can bet your soul on that, Bulldog. 
We’d go out on the trail and we’d find that Wie- 
sah-ke-chack, the Indian’s devil, had stole ’em pipe- 
dream, club-footed tracks, and when we come back 


178 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


the man that killed my chum, old Fourteen-foot, 
would be down somewhere where a smart-Aleck 
lawyer’d get him off.” 

It took an hour of cool reasoning on the part 
of Carney to extract from that roomful of men a 
promise that they would give Holt three days of 
respite, Carney giving his word that he would not 
send out any information to the police but would 
devote the time to bringing in the murderer. 

Kootenay Jim had had his wound dressed. He 
was in an ugly mood over the shooting, but the 
saner members of the lynching party felt that he 
had brought the quarrel on himself; that he had 
turned so viciously on Jeanette, whom they all liked, 
caused the men to feel that he had got pretty much 
his just deserts. He had drawn his gun first, and 
when a man does that he’s got to take the conse¬ 
quences. He was a gambler, and a gambler gen¬ 
erally had to abide by the gambling chance in gun 
play as well as by the fall of a card. 

But Carney had work to do, and he was just 
brave enough to not be foolhardy. He knew that 
the three toughs would waylay him in the dark with¬ 
out compunction. They were now thirsting not only 
for young Holt’s life, but his. So, saying openly 
that he would start in the morning, when it was dark 
he slipped through the back entrance of the hotel to 
the stable, and led his buckskin out through a corral 
and by a back way to the tunnel entrance of the 
abandoned Little Widow mine. Here he left the 
horse and returned to the hotel, set up the drinks, 


THE GOLF WOLF 


179 


and loafed about for a time, generally giving the 
three desperadoes the impression that he was camped 
for the night in the Gold Nugget, though Graham, 
in whom he had confided, knew different. 

Presently he slipped away, and Jeanette, who had 
got the key from Seth, unlocked the door that led 
down to the long communicating drift, at the other 
end of which was the opening to the Little Widow 
mine. 

Jeanette closed the door and followed Carney 
down the stairway. At the foot of the stairs he 
turned, saying: “You shouldn’t do this.” 

“Why, Bulldog?” 

“Well, you saw why this afternoon. Kootenay 
Jim has got an arm in a sling because he can’t under¬ 
stand. Men as a rule don’t understand much about 
women, so a woman has always got to wear armor.” 

“But we understand, Bulldog; and Seth does.” 

“Yes, girl, we understand; but Seth can only un¬ 
derstand the evident. You clamber up the stairs 
quick.” 

“My God! Bulldog, see what you’re doing for 
me now. You never would stand for Harry your¬ 
self.” 

“If he’d been my brother I should, just as you 
have, girl.” 

“That’s it, Bulldog, you’re doing all this, stand¬ 
ing there holding up a mob of angry men, because 
he’s my brother.” 

“You called the turn, Jeanette.” 



180 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


“And all I can do, all I can say is, thank you. Is 
that all?” 

“That’s all, girl. It’s more than enough.” 

He put a strong hand on her arm, almost shook 
her, saying with an earnestness that the playful tone 
hardly masked: 

“When you’ve got a true friend let him do all the 
friending—then you’ll hold him; the minute you try 
to rearrange his life you start backing the losing 
card. Now, good-bye, girl; I’ve got work to do. 
I’ll bring in that wolf of the trail; I’ve got him 
marked down in a cave—I’ll get him. You tell that 
pin-headed brother of yours to stand pat. And if 
Kootenay starts any deviltry go straight to Graham. 
Good-bye.” 

Cool fingers touched the girl on the forehead; 
then she stood alone watching the figure slipping 
down the gloomed passage of the drift, lighted 
candle in hand. 

Carney led his buckskin from the mine tunnel, 
climbed the hillside to a back trail, and mounting, 
rode silently at a walk till the yellow blobs of light 
that was Bucking Horse lay behind him. Then at 
a little hunch of his heels the horse broke into a 
shuffling trot. 

It was near midnight when he camped; both he 
and the buckskin had eaten robustly back at the Gold 
Nugget Hotel, and Carney, making the horse lie 
down by tapping him gently on the shins with his 
quirt, rolled himself in his blanket and slept close 


THE GOLF WOLF 181 

beside the buckskin—they were like two men in a 
huge bed. 

All next day he rode, stopping twice to let the 
buckskin feed, and eating a dry meal himself, build¬ 
ing no fire. He had a conviction that the murderer 
of the gold hunters made the Valley of the Grizzley’s 
Bridge his stalking ground. And if the devil who 
stalked these returning miners was still there he felt 
certain that he would get him. 

There had been nothing to rouse the murderer’s 
suspicion that these men were known to have been 
murdered. 

A sort of fatality hangs over a man who once 
starts in on a crime of that sort; he becomes like a 
man who handles dynamite—careless, possessed of 
a sense of security, of fatalism. Carney had found 
all desperadoes that way, each murder had made 
them more sure of themselves, it generally had been 
so easy. 

Caribou Dave had probably passed without being 
seen by the murderer; indeed he had passed that 
point early in the morning, probably while the ghoul 
of the trail slept; the murderer would reason that 
if there was any suspicion in Bucking Horse that 
miners had been made away with, a posse would 
have come riding over the back trail, and the mur¬ 
derer would have ample knowledge of their ap¬ 
proach. 

To a depraved mind, such as his, there was a 
terrible fascination in this killing of men, and cap¬ 
turing their gold; he would keep at it like a gambler 


182 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


who has struck a big winning streak; he would pile 
up gold, probably in the cave Carney had seen the 
mouth of, even if it were more than he could take 
away. It was the curse of the lust of gold, and, 
once started, the devilish murder lust. 

Carney had an advantage. He was looking for a 
man in a certain locality, and the man, not knowing 
of his approach, not dreading it, would be watching 
the trail in the other direction for victims. Even if 
he had met him full on the trail Carney would have 
passed the time of day and ridden on, as if going up 
into the Eagle Hills. And no doubt the murderer 
would let him pass without action. It was only 
returning miners he was interested in. Yes, Carney 
had an advantage, and if the man were still there 
he would get him. 

His plan was to ride the buckskin to within a 
short distance of where the murders had been com¬ 
mitted, which was evidently in the neighborhood of 
the cliff at the bottom of which Fourteen-foot John¬ 
son had been found, and go forward on foot until 
he had thoroughly reconnoitered the ground. He 
felt that he would catch sight of the murderer some¬ 
where between that point and the cave, for he was 
convinced that the cave was the home of this trail 
devil. 

The uncanny event of the wolves was not so sim¬ 
ple. The curious tone of the wolf’s howl had sug¬ 
gested a wild dog—that is, a creature that was half 
dog, half wolf; either whelped that way in the for¬ 
ests, or a train dog that had escaped. Even a fanci- 


THE GOLF WOLF 


183 


ful weird thought entered Carney’s mind that the 
murderer might be on terms of dominion over this 
half-wild pair; they might know him well enough to 
leave him alone, and yet devour his victims. This 
was conjecture, rather far-fetched, but still not im¬ 
possible. An Indian’s train dogs would obey their 
master, but pull down a white man quick enough if 
he were helpless. 

However, the man was the thing. 

The sun was dipping behind the jagged fringe of 
mountain tops to the west when Carney slipped down 
into the Valley of the Grizzley’s Bridge, and, ford¬ 
ing the stream, rode on to within a hundred and 
fifty yards of the spot where his buckskin had shied 
from the trail two days before. 

Dismounting, he took off his coat and draping it 
over the horse’s neck said: “Now you’re anchored, 
Patsy—stand steady.” 

Then he unbuckled the snaffle bit and rein from 
the bridle and wound the rein about his waist. Car¬ 
ney knew that the horse, not hampered by a dangling 
rein to catch in his legs or be seized by a man, would 
protect himself. No man but Carney could saddle 
the buckskin or mount him unless he was roped or 
thrown; and his hind feet were as deft as the fists 
of a boxer. 

Then he moved steadily along the trail, finding 
here and there the imprint of moccasined feet that 
had passed over the trail since he had. There were 
the fresh pugs of two wolves, the dog-wolf’s paws 
enormous. 


184 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


Carney’s idea was to examine closely the trail 
that ran by the cliff to where his horse had shied 
from the path in the hope of finding perhaps the 
evidences of struggle, patches of blood soaked into 
the brown earth, and then pass on to where he could 
command a view of the cave mouth. If the mur¬ 
derer had his habitat there he would be almost cer¬ 
tain to show himself at that hour, either returning 
from up the trail where he might have been on the 
lookout for approaching victims, or to issue from 
the cave for water or firewood for his evening meal. 
Just what he should do Carney had not quite deter¬ 
mined. First he would stalk the man in hopes of 
finding out something that was conclusive. 

If the murderer were hiding in the cave the gold 
would almost certainly be there. 

That was the order of events, so to speak, when 
Carney, hand on gun, and eyes fixed ahead on the 
trail, came to the spot where the wolf had stood at 
bay. The trail took a twist, a projecting rock bel¬ 
lied it into a little turn, and a fallen birch lay across 
it, half smothered in a lake of leaves and brush. 

As Carney stepped over the birch there was a 
crashing clamp of iron, and the powerful jaws of a 
bear trap closed on his leg with such numbing force 
that he almost went out. His brain swirled; there 
were roaring noises in his head, an excruciating 
grind on his leg. 

His senses steadying, his first cogent thought was 
that the bone was smashed; but a limb of the birch, 
caught in the jaws, squelched to splinters, had saved 


THE GOLF WOLF 


185 


the bone; this and his breeches and heavy socks in 
the legs of his strong riding boots. 

As if the snapping steel had carried down the 
valley, the evening stillness was rent by the yelping 
howl of a wolf beyond where the cave hung on the 
hillside. There was something demoniac in this, 
suggesting to the half-dazed man that the wolf stood 
as sentry. 

The utter helplessness of his position came to him 
with full force; he could no more open the jaws of 
that double-springed trap than he could crash the 
door of a safe. And a glance showed him that the 
trap was fastened by a chain at either end to stout¬ 
growing trees. It was a man-trap; if it had been 
for a bear it would be fastened to a piece of loose 
log. 

The fiendish deviltry of the man who had set it 
was evident. The whole vile scheme flashed upon 
Carney; it was set where the trail narrowed before 
it wound down to the gorge, and the man caught in 
it could be killed by a club, or left to be devoured 
by the wolves. A pistol might protect him for a 
little short time against the wolves, but that even 
could be easily wheedled out of a man caught by the 
murderer coming with a pretense of helping him. 

Suddenly a voice fell on Carney’s ear: 

“Throw your gun out on the trail in front of you! 
I’ve got you covered, Bulldog, and you haven’t got 
a chance on earth.” 

Now Carney could make out a pistol, a man’s 



186 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


head, and a crooked arm projecting from beside a 
tree twenty yards along the trail. 

“Throw out the gun, and I’ll parley with you I” 
the voice added. 

Carney recognized the voice as that of Jack the 
Wolf, and he knew that the offered parley was only 
a blind, a trick to get his gun away so that he would 
be a quick victim for the wolves; that would save 
a shooting. Sometimes an imbedded bullet told the 
absolute tale of murder. 

“There’s nothing doing in that line, Jack the 
Wolf,” Carney answered; “you can shoot and be 
damned to you! I’d rather die that way than be 
torn to pieces by the wolves.” 

Jack the Wolf seemed to debate this matter be¬ 
hind the tree; then he said: “It’s your own fault if 
you get into my bear trap, Bulldog; I ain’t invited 
you in. I’ve been watchin’ you for the last hour, 
and I’ve been a-wonderin’ just what your little game 
was. Me and you ain’t good ’nough friends for me 
to step up there to help you out, and you got a gun 
on you. You throw it out and I’ll parley. If you’ll 
agree to certain things, I’ll spring that trap, and you 
can ride away, ’cause I guess you’ll keep your word. 
I don’t want to kill nobody, I don’t.” 

The argument was specious. If Carney had not 
known Jack the Wolf as absolutely bloodthirsty, he 
might have taken a chance and thrown the gun. 

“You know perfectly well, Jack the Wolf, that if 
you came to help me out, and I shot you, I’d be com¬ 
mitting suicide, so you’re lying.” 


THE GOLF WOLF 


187 


“You mean you won’t give up the gun?” 

“No.” 

“Well, keep it, damn you! Them wolves knows 
a thing or two. One of ’em knows pretty near as 
much about guns as you do. They’ll just sit off there 
in the dark and laugh at you till you drop; then 
you’ll never wake up. You think it over, Bulldog, 
m- 

The speaker’s voice was drowned by the howl of 
the wolf a short distance down the valley. 

“D’you hear him, Bulldog?” Jack queried when 
the howls had died down. “They get your number 
on the wind and they’re sayin’ you’re their meat. 
You think over my proposition while I go down and 
gather in your buckskin; he looks good to me for a 
get-away. You let me know when I come back what 
you’ll do, ’cause ’em wolves is in a hurry—they’re 
hungry; and I guess your leg ain’t none too com- 
f’table.” 

Then there was silence, and Carney knew that 
Jack the Wolf was circling through the bush to 
where his horse stood, keeping out of range as he 
travelled. 

Carney knew that the buckskin would put up a 
fight; his instinct would tell him that Jack the Wolf 
was evil. The howling wolf would also have raised 
the horse’s mettle; but he himself was in the awk¬ 
ward position of being a loser, whether man or 
horse won. 

From where he was trapped the buckskin was in 
view. Carney saw his head go up, the lop ears 





188 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


throw forward in rigid listening, and he could see, 
beyond, off to the right, the skulking form of Jack 
slipping from tree to tree so as to keep the buckskin 
between him and Carney. 

Now the horse turned his arched neck and snorted. 
Carney whipped out his gun, a double purpose in his 
mind. If Jack the Wolf offered a fair mark he 
would try a shot, though at a hundred and fifty yards 
it would be a chance; and he must harbor his cart¬ 
ridges for the wolves; the second purpose was that 
the shot would rouse the buckskin with a knowledge 
that there was a battle on. 

Jack the Wolf came to the trail beyond the horse 
and was now slowly approaching, speaking in coax¬ 
ing terms. The horse, warily alert, was shaking his 
head; then he pawed at the earth like an angry bull. 

Ten yards from the horse Jack stood still, his eye 
noticing that the bridle rein and bit were missing. 
Carney saw him uncoil from his waist an ordinary 
packing rope; it was not a lariat, being short. With 
this in a hand held behind his back, Jack, with short 
steps, moved slowly toward the buckskin, trying to 
soothe the wary animal with soft speech. 

Ten feet from the horse he stood again, and Car¬ 
ney knew what that meant—a little quick dash in to 
twist the rope about the horse’s head, or seize him 
by the nostrils. Also the buckskin knew. He turned 
his rump to the man, threw back his ears, and lashed 
out with his hind feet as a warning to the horse 
thief. The coat had slipped from his neck to the 
ground. 





THE GOLF WOLF 


189 


Jack the Wolf tried circling tactics, trying to gen¬ 
tle the horse into a sense of security with soothing 
words. Once, thinking he had a chance, he sprang 
for the horse’s head, only to escape those lightning 
heels by the narrowest margin; at that instant Car¬ 
ney fired, but his bullet missed, and Jack, startled, 
stood back, planning sulkily. 

Carney saw him thread out his rope with the 
noose end in his right hand, and circle again. Then 
the hand with a half-circle sent the loop swishing 
through the air, and at the first cast it went over the 
buckskin’s head. 

Carney had been waiting for this. He whistled 
shrilly the signal that always brought the buckskin 
to his side. 

Jack had started to work his way up the rope, 
hand over hand, but at the well-known signal the 
horse whirled, the rope slipped through Jack’s 
sweaty hands, a loop of it caught his leg, and he was 
thrown. The buckskin, strung to a high nervous 
tension, answered his master’s signal at a gallop, 
and the rope, fastened to Jack’s waist, dragged him 
as though he hung from a runaway horse with a 
foot in the stirrup. His body struck rocks, trees, 
roots; it jiggered about on the rough earth like a 
cork, for the noose had slipped back to the buck¬ 
skin’s shoulders. 

Just as the horse reached Carney, Jack the Wolf’s 
two legs straddled a slim tree and the body wedged 
there. Carney snapped his fingers, but as the horse 




190 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


stepped forward the rope tightened, the body was 
fast, 

“Damned if I want to tear the cuss to pieces, 
Patsy,” he said, drawing forth his pocket knife. He 
just managed by reaching out with his long arm, to 
cut the rope, and the horse thrust his velvet muzzle 
against his master’s cheek, as if he would say, “Now, 
old pal, we’re all right—don’t worry.” 

Bulldog understood the reassurance and, patting 
the broad wise forehead, answered: “We can play 
the wolves together, Pat—Pm glad you’re here. 
It’s a hundred to one on us yet.” Then a half- 
smothered oath startled the horse, for, at a twist, 
a shoot of agony raced along the vibrant nerves to 
Carney’s brain. 

In the subsidence of strife Carney was cognizant 
of the night shadows that had crept along the val¬ 
ley; it would soon be dark. Perhaps he could build 
a little fire; it would keep the wolves at bay, for in 
the darkness they would come; it would give him 
a circle of light, and a target when the light fell on 
their snarling faces. 

Bending gingerly down he found in the big bed 
of leaves a network of dead branches that Jack the 
Wolf had cunningly placed there to hold the leaves. 
There was within reach on the dead birch some of 
its silver parchment-like bark. With his cowboy 
hat he brushed the leaves away from about his limbs, 
then taking off his belt he lowered himself gingerly 
to his free knee and built a little mound of sticks and 
bark against the birch log. Then he put his hand 



THE GOLF WOLF 


191 


in a pocket for matches—every pocket; he had not 
one match; they were in his coat lying down some¬ 
where on the trail. He looked longingly at the 
body lying wedged against the tree; Jack would have 
matches, for no man travelled the wilds without the 
means to a fire. But matches in New York were 
about as accessible as any that might be in the dead 
man’s pockets. 

Philosophic thought with one leg in a bear trap 
is practically impossible, and Carney’s arraignment 
of tantalizing Fate was inelegant. As if Fate re¬ 
sented this, Fate, or something, cast into the trapped 
man’s mind a magical inspiration—a vital grievance. 
His mind, acute because of his dilemna and pain, 
must have wandered far ahead of his cognizance, 
for a sane plan of escape lay evident. If he had a 
fire he could heat the steel springs of that trap. The 
leaves of the spring were thin, depending upon that 
elusive quality, the steel’s temper, for strength. If 
he could heat the steel, even to a dull red, the temper 
would leave it as a spirit forsakes a body, and the 
spring would bend like cardboard. 

“And I haven’t got a damn match,” Carney 
wailed. Then he looked at the body. “But you’ve 
got them-” 

He grasped the buckskin’s headpiece and drew 
him forward a pace; then he unslung his picket line 
and made a throw for Jack the Wolf’s head. If he 
could yank the body around, the wedged legs would 
clear. 

Throwing a lariat at a man lying groggily flat, 






192 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


with one of the thrower’s legs in a bear trap, was a 
new one on Carney—it was some test. 

Once he muttered grimly, from between set teeth: 
“If my leg holds out I’ll get him yet, Patsy.” 

Then he threw the lariat again, only to drag the 
noose hopelessly off the head that seemed glued to 
the ground, the dim light blurring form and earth 
into a shadow from which thrust, indistinctly, the 
pale face that carried a crimson mark from forehead 
to chin. 

He had made a dozen casts, all futile, the noose 
sometimes catching slightly at the shaggy head, even 
causing it to roll weirdly, as if the man were not 
dead but dodging the rope. As Carney slid the 
noose from his hand to float gracefully out toward 
the body his eye caught the dim form of the dog- 
wolf, just beyond, his slobbering jaws parted, giving 
him the grinning aspect of a laughing hyena. Car¬ 
ney snatched the rope and dropped his hand to his 
gun, but the wolf was quicker than the man—he was 
gone. A curious thing had happened, though, for 
that erratic twist of the rope had spiraled the noose 
beneath Jack the Wolf’s chin, and gently, vibratingly 
tightening the slip, Carney found it hold. Then, 
hand over hand, he hauled the body to the birch log, 
and, without ceremony, searched it for matches. 
He found them, wrapped in an oilskin in a pocket 
of Jack’s shirt. He noticed, casually, that Jack’s 
gun had been torn from its belt during the owner’s 
rough voyage. 

The finding of the matches was like an anesthetic 



THE GOLF WOLF 


193 


to the agony of the clamp on his leg. He chuckled, 
saying, “Patsy, it’s a million to one on us; they can’t 
beat us, old pard.” 

He transferred his faggots and birch bark to the 
loops of the springs, one pile at either end of the 
trap, and touched a match to them. 

The acrid smoke almost stifled him; sparks burnt 
his hands, and his wrists, and his face; the jaws of 
the trap commenced to catch the heat as it travelled 
along the conducting steel, and he was threatened 
with the fact that he might burn his leg off. With 
his knife he dug up the black moist earth beneath 
the leaves, and dribbled it on to the heating jaws. 

Carney was so intent on his manifold duties that 
he had practically forgotten Jack the Wolf; but as 
he turned his face from an inspection of a spring 
that was reddening, he saw a pair of black vicious 
eyes watching him, and a hand reaching for his gun 
belt that lay across the birch log. 

The hands of both men grasped the belt at the 
same moment, and a terrible struggle ensued. Car¬ 
ney was handicapped by the trap, which seemed to 
bite into his leg as if it were one of the wolves fight¬ 
ing Jack’s battle; and Jack the Wolf showed, by his 
vain efforts to rise, that his legs had been made al¬ 
most useless in that drag by the horse. 

Carney had in one hand a stout stick with which 
he had been adjusting his fire, and he brought this 
down on the other’s wrist, almost shattering the 
bone. With a cry of pain Jack the Wolf released 






194 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


his grasp of the belt, and Carney, pulling the gun, 
covered him, saying: 

“Hoped you were dead, Jack the Murderer! 
Now turn face down on this log, with your hands 
behind your back, till I hobble you.” 

“I can spring that trap with a lever and let you 
out,” Jack offered. 

“Don’t need you—I’m going to see you hanged 
and don’t want to be under any obligation to you, 
murderer; turn over quick or I’ll kill you now—my 
leg is on fire.” 

Jack the Wolf knew that a man with a bear trap 
on his leg and a gun in his hand was not a man to 
trifle with, so he obeyed. 

When Jack’s wrists were tied with the picket line, 
Carney took a loop about the prisoner’s legs; then 
he turned to his fires. 

The struggle had turned the steel springs from 
the fires; but in the twisting one of them had been 
bent so that its ring had slipped down from the 
jaws. Now Carney heaped both fires under the 
other spring and soon it was so hot that, when bal¬ 
ancing his weight on the leg in the trap, he placed 
his other foot on it and shifted his weight, the strip 
of steel went down like paper. He was free. 

At first Carney could not bear his weight on the 
mangled leg; it felt as if it had been asleep for ages; 
the blood rushing through the released veins pricked 
like a tatooing needle. He took off his boot and 
massaged the limb, Jack eyeing this proceeding sar- 


THE GOLF WOLF 


195 


donically. The two wolves hovered beyond the fire^ 
light, snuffling and yapping. 

When he could hobble on the injured limb Carney 
put the bit and bridle rein back on the buckskin, and 
turning to Jack, unwound the picket line from his 
legs, saying, “Get up and lead the way to that cave I” 

“I can’t walk, Bulldog,” Jack protested; “my leg’s 
half broke.” 

“Take your choice—get on your legs, or I’ll tie 
you up and leave you for the wolves,” Carney 
snapped. 

Jack the Wolf knew his Bulldog Carney well. As 
he rose groggily to his feet, Carney lifted to the 
saddle, holding the loose end of the picket line that 
was fastened to Jack’s wrists, and said: 

“Go on in front; if you try any tricks I’ll put a 
bullet through you—this sore leg’s got me peeved.” 

At the cave Carney found, as he expected, several 
little canvas bags of gold, and other odds and ends 
such as a murderer too often, and also foolishly, will 
garner from his victims. But he also found some¬ 
thing he had not expected to find—the cayuse that 
had belonged to Fourteen-foot Johnson, for Jack 
the Wolf had preserved the cayuse to pack out his 
wealth. 

Next morning, no chance of action having come 
to Jack the Wolf through the night, for he had lain 
tied up like a turkey that is to be roasted, he started 
on the pilgrimage to Bucking Horse, astride Four¬ 
teen-foot Johnson’s cayuse, with both feet tied be- 


196 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


neath that sombre animal’s belly. Carney landed 
him and the gold in that astonished berg. 

And in the fullness of time something very serious 
happened the enterprising man of the bear trap. 


V 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 

They had not been playing more than half an 
hour when Bulldog Carney felt there was something 
wrong with the game. Perhaps it was that he was 
overtired—that he should have taken advantage of 
the first bed he had seen in a month, for he had just 
come in off the trail to Bucking Horse, the little, 
old, worn-out, mining town, perched high in the 
Rockies on the Canadian side of the border. 

From the very first he had been possessed of a 
mental unrest not habitual with him at poker. His 
adventurous spirit had always found a risk, a high 
stake, an absolute sedative; it steadied his nerve— 
gave him a concentrated enjoyment of pulled- 
together mental force. But to-night there was a 
scent of evil in the room. 

A curious room, too, in which to be playing a 
game of poker for high stakes, for it was the 
Mounted Police shack at Bucking Horse. But Ser¬ 
geant Black was away on patrol, or over at Fort 
Steel, and at such times the key of the log barracks 
was left with Seth Long at his hotel, the Gold Nug¬ 
get. And it was Seth who had suggested that they 
play in the police shack rather than in a room of the 
hotel. 


i97 



198 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


Carney could not explain to himself why the dis¬ 
trust, why the feeling that everything was not on 
the level; but he had a curious conviction that some 
one in the party knew every time he drew cards just 
what was in his hand; that some one always over¬ 
mastered him; and this was a new sensation to Bull¬ 
dog, for if there ever was a u poker face” he owned 
it. His steel-gray eyes were as steady, as sub¬ 
merged to his will, as the green on a forest tree. 
And as to the science of the game, with its substruc¬ 
ture of nerve, he possessed it in excelsis . 

He watched each successive dealer of the cards 
unobtrusively; watched hand after hand dealt, and 
knew that every card had been slipped from the 
top; that the shuffle had been clean, a whispering 
riffle without catch or trick, and the same pack was 
on the table that they had started with. He had not 
lost anything to speak of—and here was the hitch, 
the enigma of it. Once he felt that a better hand 
than his own had been deliberately laid down when 
he had raised; another time he had been called w r hen 
a raise would have cost him dear, for he was over¬ 
held; twice he had been raised out of it before the 
draw. He felt that this had been done simply to 
keep him out of those hands, and both times the 
Stranger had lost heavily. 

Seth Long had won; but to suspicion that Seth 
Long could manipulate a card was to imagine a 
glacier dancing a can-can. Seth was all thumbs; his 
mind, so to speak, was all thumbs. 

Cranford, the Mining Engineer, was different. 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 


199 


He was mentality personified; that curious type, 
high velocity delicately balanced, his physical struc¬ 
ture of the flexible tenuous quality of spring steel. 
He might be a dangerous man if roused. Beneath 
the large dome of his thin Italian-pale face were 
dreamy black eyes. He was hard to place. He was 
a mining engineer without a mine to manage. He 
was somewhat of a promoter—of restless activity. 
He was in Bucking Horse on some sort of a mine 
deal about which Carney knew nothing. If he had 
been a gambler Carney would have considered him 
the author of the unrest that hung so evilly over the 
game. 

Shipley was a bird of passage, at present nesting 
in the Gold Nugget Hotel. Carney knew of him just 
as a machinery man, a seller of compressed-air drills, 
etc., on commission. He was also a gambler in mine 
shares, for during the game he had told of a clean-up 
he had made on the “Gray Goose” stock. The Gray 
Goose Mine was an ill-favored bird, for its stock had 
had a crooked manipulation. Shipley’s face was not 
confidence-inspiring; its general contour suggested 
the head piece of a hawk, with its avaricious curve to 
the beak. His metallic eyes were querulous; hold¬ 
ing little of the human look. His hands had caught 
Carney’s eye when he came into the shack first and 
drew off a pair of gloves. The fingers were long, 
and flexible, and soft-skinned. The gloves were the 
disquieting exhibit, for Carney had known gamblers 
who wore kid coverings on their hands habitually 
to preserve the sensitiveness of their finger tips. He 



BULLDOG CARNEY 


200 

also had known gamblers who, ostensibly, had a 
reputable occupation. 

If the Stranger had been winning Carney would 
not have been so ready to eliminate him as the villain 
of the play. He was almost more difficult to allo¬ 
cate than Cranford. He was well dressed—too well 
dressed for unobservation. His name was Hadley, 
and he was from New York. Beyond the fact that 
he had six thousand dollars in Seth Long’s iron box, 
and drank somewhat persistently, little was known 
of him. His conversation was almost entirely lim¬ 
ited to a boyish smile, and an invitation to anybody 
and everybody to “have a small sensation,” said sen¬ 
sation being a drink. Once his reticence slipped a 
cog, and he said something about a gold mine up in 
the hills that a man, Tacoma Jack, was going to sell 
him. That was what the six thousand was for; he 
was going to look at it with Tacoma, and if it were 
as represented, make the first payment when they 
returned. 

Watching the Stranger riffle the cards and deal 
them with the quiet easy grace of a club-man, the 
sensitive tapering fingers slipping the paste boards 
across the table as softly as the falling of flower 
petals, Carney was tempted to doubt, but lifting his 
gray eyes to the smooth face, the boyish smile lay¬ 
ing bare an even set of white teeth, he changed, mut¬ 
tering inwardly, “Too much class.” 

It was puzzling; there was something wrong; the 
game was too erratic for finished poker players; the 
spirit of uncertainty possessed them all; the drawing 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 


201 


to fill was unethical, wayward. Even when Carney 
had laboriously built up a queen-full, inwardly some¬ 
thing whispered, “What’s the use? If there are ^ 
better cards out you’ll lose; if not you’ll win little.” X 

Carney’s own fingers were receptive, and he had 
carefully passed them over the smooth surface of 
the cards many times; he could swear there was no 
mark of identification, no pin pricks. The pattern 
on the back of the cards could contain no geometric 
key, for it was remarkably simple: seven blue doves 
were in flight across a blue background that was 
cross hatched and sprayed with leaves. 

Then, all at once, he discovered something. The 
curve of the doves’ wings were all alike—almost. 

In a dozen hands he had it. It was an artistic va¬ 
gary; the right wing of the middle dove was the 
thousandth part of an inch more acutely angled on 
the ace; on the king the right wing of the second 
dove to the left. 

It would have taken a tuition of probably three 
days for a man to memorize the whole system, but 
it was there—which was the main thing. And the 
next most important factor was that somebody at 
the table knew the system. Who was it? 

Seth had won; but a strong run of luck could 
have accounted for that, and Seth as a gambler was 
a joke. The Stranger, if he were a super-crook, 
hiding behind that juvenile smile, would be quite 
capable of this interesting chicanery—but he had 
lost. 

Cranford, the Engineer, who had played with the 



202 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


consistent conservativeness of a man sitting in bad 
luck, was two hundred loser. The man of ma¬ 
chinery, Shipley, was two hundred to the good; he 
had played a forcing game, and but for having had 
two flushes beaten by Seth would have been a bigger 
winner. These two flushes had troubled Carney, for 
Shipley had drawn two cards each hand. Either he 
was in great luck, or knew something. 

Carney debated this extraordinary thing. His 
courage was so exquisite that he never made a mis¬ 
take through over-zealousness in the fomenting of 
trouble; the easy way was always the brave way, he 
believed. In the West there was no better key to 
let loose locked-up passion than to accuse men of 
cheating at cards; it was the last ditch at which even 
cowards drew and shot. He took a handkerchief 
from his pocket, wiped his eyes, and dropped it into 
his lap. At the next hand he looked at his cards, 
ran them together on the very edge of the table, 
dropped one into the handkerchief, placed the other 
four, neatly compacted, into the discard, and said, 
Tm out!” 

Then he wiped his eyes again with the handker¬ 
chief, and put it back in his pocket. 

At the third deal somebody discovered that the 
pack was shy—a card was missing. Investigation 
showed that it was the ace of hearts. 

A search on the floor failed to discover the ace. 

The irritation caused by this incident was sub* 
dued. 

“I’ll slip over to the hotel and get another pack,” 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 


203 


Seth Long suggested, gathering up the cards and 
putting them in his pocket. 

From the time Carney had discovered the erratic 
curve to the doves’ wings he had been wanting to 
ask, “Who owns these cards?” but had realized that 
it would have led to other things. Now the query 
had answered itself—they were Seth’s, evidently. 

This decided Carney, and he said, “I’m tired— 
I’ve had a long ride to-day.” 

He stacked up his chips and added: “I’m shy a 
hundred.” 

He slid five twenty-dollar gold pieces on to the 
table, and stood up, yawning. 

“I think I’ll quit, too,” Cranford said. “I’ve 
played like a wooden man. To tell you the truth, 

I haven’t enjoyed the game—don’t know what’s the 
matter with me.” 

“I’m winner,” Shipley declared, “so I’ll stick with 
the game; but right now I’d rather shove the two 
hundred into a pot and cut for it than turn another 
card, for to play one round with a card shy is a 
hoodoo to me. I’ve got a superstition about it. It’s 
come my way twice, and each time there’s been 
hell.” 

The boyish smile that had been hovering about ' 
Hadley’s lips suddenly gave place to a hard sneer, 
and he said: “I’m loser and I don’t want to quit. 
The game is young, and, gentlemen, you know what 
that means.” 

Shipley’s black brows drew together, and he 
turned on the speaker: 



204 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


“I haven’t got your money, mister ; your losin’ has 
been to Seth. I don’t like your yap a little bit. I’ll 
cut the cards cold for a thousand now, or I’ll make 
you a present of the two hundred if you need it.” 

Carney’s quiet voice hushed into nothingness a 
damn that had issued from Hadley’s lips; he was 
saying: “You two gentlemen can’t quarrel over a 
game of cards that I’ve sat in; I don’t think you 
want to, anyway. We’d better just put the game off 
till to-morrow night.” 

“We can’t do that,” Seth objected; “I’ve won Mr. 
Hadley’s money, and if he wants to play I’ve got to 
stay with him. We’ll square up and start fresh. 
Anybody wants to draw cards sets in; them as don’t, 
quits.” 

“I’ve got to have my wallet out of your box, Seth, 
if we’re to settle now; besides I want another sensa¬ 
tion—this bottle’s dry,” Hadley advised. 

“I’ll bring over the cards, your wad, and another 
bottle,” Long said as he rose. 

In three or four minutes he was back agai^, pulled 
the cork from a bottle of Scotch whisky, and they all 
drank. 

Then, after passing a leather wallet over to Had¬ 
ley, he totaled up the accounts. 

Hadley was twelve hundred loser. 

He took from the wallet this amount in large 
bills, passed them to Seth, and handed the wallet 
back, saying, with the boy’s smile on his lips, “Here, 
banker, put that back in your pocket—you’re respon¬ 
sible. There’s forty-eight hundred there now. If 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 


205 


I put it in my pocket I’ll probably forget it, and hang 
the coat on my bedpost.” 

Seth passed two hundred across to Shipley, saying, 
“That squares you.” 

Cranford had shoved his chips in with an I. O. U. 
for two hundred dollars, saying, “I’ll pay that to¬ 
morrow. I feel as if I had been pallbearer at a 
funeral. When a man is gloomy he shouldn’t sit 
into any game bigger than checkers.” 

Seth now drew from a pocket two packs of cards 
—the blue-doved cards and a red pack; then he re¬ 
turned the blue cards to his pocket. 

Carney viewed this performance curiously. He 
had been wondering intently whether the new pack 
would be the same as the one with the blue doves. 
The red cards carried a different design, a simple 
leafy scroll, and Carney washed his mind of the 
whole oblique thing, mentally absolving himself 
from further interest. 

Seth shuffled the new cards, face up, to take out 
the joker; having found it, he tore the card in two, 
threw it on the floor, and asked, “Now, who’s in?” 

“I’ll play for one hour,” Shipley said, with an 
aggressive crispness; “then I quit, win or lose; if 
that doesn’t go I’ll put the two hundred on the table 
to Mr. Hadley’s one hundred, and cut for the pot.” 

Curiously this only raised the boy’s smile on Had¬ 
ley’s face, but inflamed Seth. He turned on Shipley 
with a coarse raging: 

“You talk like a man lookin’ for trouble, mister. 



206 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


Why the hell don’t you sit into the game or take 
your little bag of marbles and run away home.” 

“I’m going,” Carney declared noisily. “My ad¬ 
vice to you gentlemen is to cut out the unpleasant¬ 
ness, and play the game.” 

Somewhat sullenly Shipley checked an angry re¬ 
tort that had risen to his lips, and, reaching for the 
rack of poker chips, started to build a little pile in 
front of him. 

Cranford followed Carney out, and though his 
shack lay in the other direction, walked with the 
latter to the Gold Nugget. Cranford was in a most 
depressed mood; he admitted this. 

“There was something wrong about that game, 
Carney,” he asserted. “I knew you felt it—that’s 
why you quit. I was to go up to Bald Rock on the 
night train to make a little payment in the morning 
to secure some claims, but now I don’t know. I’m 
sore on myself for sitting in. I guess I’ve got the 
gambling bug in me as big as a woodchuck; I’m easy 
when I hear the click of poker chips. I lose two 
hundred there, and while, generally, it’s not more 
than a piker’s bet on anything, just now I’m trying 
to put something over in the way of a deal, and I’m 
runnin’ kind of close to the wind, financially. That 
two hundred may—hell! don’t think me a squealer, 
Bulldog. Good night, Bulldog.” 

Carney stood for ten seconds watching Cranford’s 
back till it merged into the blur of the night. Then 
he entered the hotel, almost colliding with Jeanette 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 207 

Holt, who put a hand on his arm and drew him into 
the dining-room to a seat at a little table. 

‘‘Where’s Seth?” she asked. 

“Over at the police shack.” 

“Poker?” 

Carney nodded. 

“Mr. Hadley there?” 

Again Carney nodded. Then he asked, “Why, 
Jeanette?” 

“I don’t quite know,” she answered wearily. 
“Seth’s moral fibre—if he has any—is becoming like 
a worn-out spring in a clock.” Then her dark eyes 
searched Carney’s placid gray eyes, and she asked, 
“Were you playing?” 

“Yes.” 

The girl drew her hand across her eyes as if she 
were groping, not for ideas, but for vocal vehicle. 
“And you left before the game was over—-why?” 

“Tired.” 

Jeanette put her hand on Carney’s that was lying 
on the table. “Was Seth cheating?” 

“Why do you ask that, Jeanette?” 

“I’ll tell you. He’s been playing by himself in 
his room for two or three days. He’s got a pack of 
cards that I think are crooked.” 

“What is this Shipley like, Jeanette? Do you 
suppose that he brought Seth those cards?” 

“I don’t know,” the girl answered; “I don’t like 
him. He and Seth have played together once or 
twice.” 

“They have! Look here, Jeanette, you must keep 




208 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


what I am going to tell you absolutely to yourself, 
for I may be entirely wrong in my guess. There 
was a marked pack in the game, and I think Seth 
owned it. This Shipley acted very like a man who 
was running a bluff of being angry. He and Seth 
had some words over nothing. It seems to me the 
quarrel was too gratuitous to be genuine.” 

“You think, Bulldog, that Shipley and Seth 
worked together to win Hadley’s money—he had 
six thousand in Seth’s strong box?” 

“I can’t go that far, even to you, Jeanette. But 
to-morrow Seth has got to give back to Hadley what¬ 
ever he has won. I’ve got one of the cards in my 
pocket, and that will be enough.” 

“But if he divides with Shipley?” 

“Shipley will have to cough up the stolen money, 
too, because then the conspiracy will be proven.” 

“Yes, Bulldog. I guess if you just tell them to 
hand the money back, there’ll be no argument. I 
can go to bed now and sleep,” she added, patting 
Carney’s hand with her slim fingers. “You see, if 
Seth got that stranger’s money away it wouldn’t 
worry him—the moral aspect, I mean; but somehow 
it makes it terrible for me. It’s discovering small 
evil in a man—petty larceny, sneak thieving—that 
pours sand into a woman’s soul. Good night, Bull¬ 
dog. I think if I were only your sister I’d be quite 
satisfied—quite.” 

“You are,” Carney said, rising; “we are seven—* 
and you are the other six, Jeanette.” 

As a rule nothing outside of a tangible actuality, 



SEVEN BLUE DOVES 


209 


such as danger that had to be guarded against, kept 
Carney from desired slumber; but after he had 
turned out his light he lay wide awake for half an 
hour, his soul full of the abhorrent repugnance of 
Seth’s stealing. 

Carney’s code was such that he could shake heart¬ 
ily by the hand, or drink with, a man who had held 
up a train, or fought (even to the death of some¬ 
one) the Police over a matter of whisky or opium 
running, if that man were above petty larceny, above 
stealing from a man who had confidence in him. He 
lay there suffused with the grim satisfaction of know¬ 
ing how completely Seth, and possibly Shipley, would 
be nonplussed when they were forced on the morrow 
to give up their ill-gotten gains. That would be a 
matter purely between Carney and Seth. The prob¬ 
lem of how he would return the loot to Hadley with¬ 
out telling him of the marked pack, was not yet 
solved. Indeed, this little mental exercise, like 
counting sheep, led Carney off into the halls of 
slumber. 

He was brought back from the rest cavern by 
something that left him sitting bolt upright in bed, 
correlating the disturbing something with known re¬ 
membrances of the noise. 

“Yes, by gad, it was a shot!” 

He was out of bed and at the window. He could 
have sworn that a shadow had flitted in the dim 
moonlight along the roadway that lay beyond the 
police shack; it was so possible this aftermath of 
card cheating, a shot and someone fleeing. It was a 



210 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


subconscious conviction that caused him to precipi¬ 
tate himself into his clothes, and slip his gun belt 
about his waist. 

In the hall he met Jeanette, her great mass of 
black hair rippling over the shoulders, from which 
draped a kimono. The lamp in her hand enhanced 
the ghastly look of horror that was over her drawn 
face. 

“What’s wrong, Jeanette—was it a shot?” 

“Yes! I’ve looked into Seth’s room—he’s not 
there!” 

Without speaking Carney tapped on a door al¬ 
most opposite his own; there was no answer, and he 
swung it open. Then he closed it and whispered: 
“Hadley’s not in, either; fancy they’re still playing.” 

Jeanette pointed a linger to a door farther down 
the hall. Carney understood. Again he tapped on 
this door, opened it, peered in, closed it, and coming 
back to Jeanette whispered: “Shipley’s not there. 
Fancy it must be all right—they’re still playing. I’ll 
go over to the shack.” 

“I’ll wait till you come back, Bulldog. It isn’t all 
right. I never felt so oppressed in my life. I know 
something dreadful has happened—I know it.” 

Carney touched his fingers gently to the girl’s 
arm, and manufacturing a smile of reassurance, said 
blithely: “You’ve eaten a slab of bacon, a la fry- 
pan, girl.” Then he’was gone. 

As he rounded the hotel corner he could see a 
lighted lamp in a window of the police shack. This 



SEVEN BLUE DOVES 


211 


was curious; it hurried his pace, for they were not 
playing at the table. 

He threw open the shack door, and stood just 
within, looking at what he knew was a dead man— 
Seth Long sprawled on his back on the floor where 
he had tumbled from a chair. His shirt front was 
crimson with blood, just over the heart. 

There was no evidence of a struggle; just the 
chair across the table from where Seth had sat was 
ominously pushed back a little. The red-backed 
cards were resting on the corner of the table neatly 
gathered into a pack. 

Cool-brained Carney stood just within the door, 
mentally photographing the interior. The killing 
had not been over a game that was in progress, un¬ 
less the murderer, with super-cunning, had rear¬ 
ranged the tableau. 

Carney stepped to beside the dead man. Seth’s 
pistol lay close to his outstretched right hand. Car¬ 
ney picked it up, and broke the cartridges from the 
cylinder; one was empty; the barrel of the gun was 
foul. 

Seth’s shirt was black and singed; the weapon 
that killed him had been held close. 

Carney’s brain, running with the swift, silent ve¬ 
locity of a spinning top, queried: Was the killer so 
super-clever that he had discharged Seth’s gun to 
make it appear suicide? 

Subconsciously the marked cards that probably 
had led up to this murder governed Carney’s next 
move. He thrust his hand in the pocket of the coat 




212 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


where Seth had put the discarded pack—it was 
gone. He felt the other pocket—the pack was not 
there. A quick look over the room, table and all, 
failed to locate the missing cards. Lie felt the inside 
pocket of the coat for the leather wallet that con¬ 
tained Hadley’s money—there was no wallet. 

At that instant a sinister feeling of evil caused 
Carney to stiffen, his eyes to set in a look of wariness; 
at the soft click of a boot against a stone his gun 
was out and, without rising, he whipped about. 

The flickering uncertain lamplight picked out from 
the gloom of the night in the open doorway the face 
of Shipley. Perhaps it was the goblin light, or fear, 
or malignant satisfaction that caused Shipley’s face 
to appear grotesquely contorted; his eyes were either 
gloating, or imbecile-tinged by horror. 

“My God! what’s happened, Carney?” he asked. 
“Don’t cover me, I—I-” 

“Come into the light, then,” Carney commanded. 

In silent obedience Shipley stepped into the room, 
and Carney, passing to the door, peered out. Then 
he closed it, and dropped his gun back into his 
belt. 

“What’s happened?” Shipley repeated. And the 
other, listening with intensity, noticed that the 
speaker’s voice trembled. 

“Where have you come from just now?” Carney 
asked, ignoring the question. 

Shipley drew a hand across his eyes, as if he would 
compel back his wandering thoughts, or would blot 



SEVEN BLUE DOVES 213 

out the horror of that blood-smeared figure on the 
floor. 

“I went for a walk,” he answered. 

“Why-—when?” Carney snapped imperiously. 

“I quit the game half an hour ago, and thought 
I’d walk over to Cranford’s house; the smoking 
and the drinks had given me a headache.” 

“Why to Cranford’s house?” 

Shipley threw his head up as if he were about to 
resent the crisp cross-examining, but Bulldog’s gray 
eyes, always compelling, were now fierce. 

“Well,”—Shipley coughed—“I didn’t like the 

looks of the game to-night; that ace being shy- 

Didn’t you feel there was something not on the 
level?” 

“I didn’t take that walk to Cranford’s!” The 
deadliness that had been in the gray eyes was in the 
voice now. 

“I thought that if Cranford was still up I’d talk 
it over with him; he’d lost, and I fancied he was sore 
on the game.” 

“What did Cranford say?” 

“I didn’t see him. I tapped on his door, and as 
he didn’t answer I—I thought he was asleep and 

came back. I saw the door open here, and-” 

Shipley hesitated. 

“Did you leave Seth and Hadley playing?” 

“Yes.” 

“And you didn’t see either of them again?” 

“No.” 




214 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


“Did you hear a shot?” and Carney pointed to¬ 
ward the blood-stained shirt. 

Shipley looked at Carney and seemed to hesitate. 
“I heard something ten minutes ago, but thought it 
was a door slamming. Where’s Hadley—have you 
seen him? Were you here when this was done?” 

“Come on,” Carney said, “we’ll go back to the 
hotel and round up Hadley.” 

As they went out Carney locked the door, the 
key being still in the lock. 

When the two men entered the Gold Nugget, 
Carney stepped behind the bar and turned up a wall 
lamp that was burning low. As he faced about he 
gave a start, and then hurried across the room to 
where a figure huddled in one of the big wooden arm 
chairs. It was Hadley—sound asleep, or pretend¬ 
ing to be. 

When Carney shook him the sleeper scrambled 
drunkenly to his feet blinking. Then the boy smile 
flitted foolishly over his lips, and. he mumbled: 
“I say, how long Ve I been asleep—where’s Seth?” 

“What are you doing here asleep?” Carney asked, 
the crisp incisiveness of his voice wakening com¬ 
pletely the rather fogged man. 

“I sat down to wait for Seth. Guess the whisky 
made me sleepy—had a little too much of it.” 

“Where did you leave Seth—how long ago?” 

“Over at the police shack; we quit the game and 
Seth said he’d tidy up for fear the Sergeant’d be 
back in the morning—throw out the empty bottles, 
and pick up the cigar stubs and matches, kind of 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 


215 


tidy up. I came on to go to bed and-” Hadley 

spoke haltingly, as though his memory of his prog¬ 
ress was still befogged—“when I got here I re¬ 
membered that he’d got my wallet, and thought I’d 
sit down and wait so’s to be sure he didn’t forget to 
put it back in the iron box.” 

“Did you have a row with Seth when you broke 
up the game?” 

Hadley flushed. He was in a slightly stupid con¬ 
dition. During his nap the whisky had sullenly 
subsided, leaving him a touch maudlin, surly. 

“I don’t see what right you’ve got to ask that; 
I guess that’s a matter between two men.” 

Carney fastened his piercing eyes on the speaker’s, 
and shot out with startling suddenness: “Seth Long 
has been murdered—do you know that?” 

“What—what—what’re you saying?” 

Hadley’s mouth remained open; it was like the 
gaping mouth of a gasping fish; his eyes had been 
startled into a wide horrified wonder look. 

“Seth—murdered!” then he grinned foolishly. 
“By God! you Westerners pull some rough stuff. 
That’s not good form to spring a joke like that; 
I’m a tenderfoot, but-” 

“Stop it!” Carney snarled; “do you think I’m a 
damned fool. Seth has been shot through the heart, 
and you were the last man with him. I want from 
you all you know. We’ve got to catch the right 
man, not the wrong man—do you get that, Hadley?” 

The fierceness of this toniced the man with a 
hang-over, cleared his fuzzy brain. 






216 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


“My God! I don’t know anything about it. I 
left Seth Long at the police shack, and I don’t know 
anything more about him.” 

There was a step on the stairway. Carney turned 
as Jeanette came through the door. He went to 
meet her, and turned her back into the hall where he 
said: 

“Steady yourself, girl. Something has hap¬ 
pened.” 

“I know—I heard you; I’m steady.” She put her 
hand in his, and he pressed it reassuringly. Then 
he whispered: 

“I’m going to leave you with these two men while 
I get Dr. Anderson, and I want you to see if 
either of these men leaves the room, or attempts to 
hide anything—I can’t search them. Do you un¬ 
derstand, Jeanette?” 

“Yes.” 

He came back to the room with the girl and said: 

“I’m going for the coroner, Dr. Anderson, and 
for your own sakes, gentlemen, I’ll ask you to wait 
here in this room—it will be better.” 

Then he was gone. 

In twenty minutes he was back with Dr. Ander¬ 
son. On their way to the hotel Carney and the 
Doctor had gone into the police shack to make cer¬ 
tain, through medical examination, that Seth was 
dead. 

Upon their entry Jeanette had gone upstairs, the 
Doctor suggesting this. 

Dr. Anderson was a Scotchman, absolute, with all 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 217 

that the name implies in canny conservative stub¬ 
born adherence to things as they are; the appar¬ 
ent consistencies. 

Here was a man murdered in cold blood; he was 
the only one to be considered; he was the wronged 
party; the others were to be viewed with suspicion 
until by process of elimination they had been cleared 
of guilt. So there was no doubt whatever but that 
Carney had as good a claim as any of them to the 
title of assassin. 

In the flurry of it all Carney had not thought of 
this. 

When the three stories had been told, Dr. Ander¬ 
son said: 

“Sergeant Black will be back to-morrow, I think; 
then we’ll take action. I’d advise you gentlemen to 
remain in statu quo, if I might use the term. 
There’s one thing that ought to be done, though; 
I think you’ll agree with me that it is advisable for 
each man’s sake. A wallet with a large sum of 
money has disappeared from the murdered man’s 
pocket, and as each one of you will be more or less 
under suspicion—I’m speaking now just in the way 
of forecasting what that unsympathetic individual, 
the law, will do—it would be as well for each of you 
to submit to a search of your person. I have no 
authority to demand this, but it’s expedient.” 

To this the three agreed; Hadley, with a sort of 
repugnance, and Shipley with, perhaps, an overzeal- 
ous compliance, Carney thought. There was no 
trace of the wallet. 


218 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


Carney had said nothing about the missing cards, 
but neither were they found. 

No pistol was found on Hadley, but a short-bar¬ 
reled gun was discovered in Shipley’s hip pocket. 

The Doctor broke the weapon, and his eyebrows 
drew down in a frown ominously—there was an 
empty chamber in the cylinder. 

“There’re only five bullets here,” he said, his keen 
eyes resting on Shipley’s face. 

“Yes, I always load it that way, leaving the ham¬ 
mer at the empty chamber, so that if it falls and 
strikes on the hammer it can’t explode.” 

With an “Ugh-huh!” Anderson looked through 
the barrel. It was of an indeterminate murkiness; 
this might be due to not having been cleaned for a 
long time, or a recent discharge. 

“I’d better retain this gun, if you don’t mind,” 
he said. 

Shipley agreed to this readily. Then he said, in 
a hesitating, apologetic way that was really more 
irritating than if he had blurted it out: “Mr. Car¬ 
ney, as I have stated, was discovered by me stand¬ 
ing over the dead man with a gun in his hand. I 
think as this point will certainly be brought up at 
any examination, that Mr. Carney, in justice to him¬ 
self, should let the Doctor examine his weapon to 
see that it has not lately been discharged.” 

Carney started, for he fancied there was a direct 
implication in this. But the Doctor spoke quickly, 
brusquely. “Most certainly he should—I clean for¬ 
got it.” 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 219 

Carney drew the gun from its leather pocket, 
broke it, and six lead-nosed .45 shells rolled on the 
table; not one of the shells had lost its bullet. He 
passed the gun to Dr. Anderson, who, pointing it 
toward the light, looked through the barrel. 

“As bright as a silver dollar,” he commented, 
relief in his voice; “I’m glad we thought of this.” 

Carney slipped the shells back into the cylinder, 
and dropped the gun into its holster without com¬ 
ment. 

Then the Doctor said: “We can’t do anything 
to-night—we’ll only obliterate any tracks and lose 
good clues. We’ll take it up in the morning. You 
men have got to clear yourselves, so I’d just rest 
quiet, if I were you. If we go poking about we’ll 
have the whole town about our ears. I’m glad that 
nobody thought it worth while to investigate if they 
heard the shot.” 

“A shot in Bucking Horse doesn’t mean much,” 
Carney said, “just a drunken miner, or an Indian 
playing brave.” 

It seemed to Carney that Anderson had rather 
hurried the closing out of the matter, that is, tem¬ 
porarily. It occurred to him that the Scotchman’s 
herring-hued eyes were asking him to acquiesce in 
what was being done. 

Carney lingered when Shipley and Hadley had 
gone to bed. 

The Scotch Doctor had filled a pipe, and Bulldog 
noticed that as he puffed vigorously at its stem his 
eyes had wandered several times to the platoon of 


220 BULLDOG CARNEY 

black bottles ranged with military precision behind 
the bar. 

“I’m tired over this devilish thing,” Carney re¬ 
marked casually, and passing behind the bar he 
brought out a bottle and two glasses, adding, 
“Would you mind joining?” 

“I’d like it, man. Good whisky is like good law— 
a wee bit of it is very line, too much of it is as bad 
as roguery.” 

The Doctor quaffed with zest the liquid, wiped his 
lips with a florid red handkerchief, took a puff at 
the evil-smelling pipe, and said: 

“Court’s over! A minute ago I was ‘Jeffries, 
the Hangin’ Judge,’ and to-morrow, as coroner, 
I’ll be as veecious no doubt; now, ad interim (the 
Doctor was fond of a legal phrase), I’m going to 
talk to you, Bulldog, as man to man, because I want 
your help to pin the right devil. And besides, I 
have a soft spot in my heart for Jeanette—perhaps 
it’s just her Scotch name, I’m not sayin’. In the 
first place, Bulldog, has it struck you that you’re 
in fair runnin’ to be selected as the man that killed 
Seth?” 

Carney laughed; then he looked quizzically at the 
speaker; but he could see that the latter was in 
deadly earnest. 

“Mind,” the Doctor resumed, “personally I know 
you didn’t do it; that’s because I know you devilish 
well—you’re too big for such small-brained acts. 
But the law is a godless machine; its way is like the 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 221 

way of a brick mason—facts are the bricks that make 
the structure.” 

“But the law always searches for the motive, 
and why should I kill Seth, who was more or less 
a friend?” 

“All the worse. As a matter of fact there are 
more slayings over strained friendships than over 
the acquisition of gold. But don’t you remember 
what that foul-mouthed brute, Kootenay Jim, said 
when Jeanette’s brother was near lynched?” 

Carney stared; then a little flush crept over his 
lean tanned face: 

“You mean, Doctor, about Jeanette and myself?” 

“Aye.” 

Carney nodded, holding himself silent in sup¬ 
pressed bitterness. 

“The same evil mouths will repeat that, Bulldog. 
And here are the bricks for the law’s building. 
Shipley will swear that he found you bending over 
the murdered man with a gun in one hand search¬ 
ing his pockets. Arid I noticed, though I didn’t 
speak of it, there was blood on your hands.” 

Startled, Carney looked at his fingers; they were 
blood-stained. Then he drew his gun, saying, “God! 
and there’s blood on this thing, too!” 

“There is; I saw it on the butt. And though you 
broke it here before us to-night to show that it hadn’t 
been discharged, Sergeant Black, while he’s thick¬ 
headed, will perhaps have wit enough to say that 
you were off by yourself when you came for me, 
and could have cleaned house.” 

V 





222 BULLDOG CARNEY 

“And that swine, Shipley—do you suppose he 
thought of that, too?” 

“I think he did: I did at the time, though I said 
nothing. You see, Carney, innocent or guilty, he 
naturally wants to clear himself, and he took a 
chance. If he’s innocent he may really think that 
you killed Seth, and hoped to find the proof of it 
in a smudged gun and an empty shell; and if he’s 
guilty, he was directing suspicion towards you, 
knowing that the clean gun would be nothing in your 
favor at the examination as you had had the oppor¬ 
tunity to put it right. I don’t like the incident, nor 
the man’s spirit, but it proves nothing for or against 
him. I expect he’s clever enough to know that the 
last man seen with a murdered man is, de facto, the 
slayer.” 

“As to the matter of the gun,” Carney said, “I’ve 
an idea Seth was killed with his own gun. He was 
in a grouchy mood to-night—he always was a damn 
fool—and he may have pulled his gun, in his usual 
bluffing way, and the other party twisted it out of his 
hand and shot him. I only heard one shot.” Car¬ 
ney remained silent for a full minute; then he said: 

“One doesn’t care to bring a good woman’s name 
into anything that’s evil, but I fancy I’d better tell 
you: Jeanette was wakened by the shot that wak¬ 
ened me, and we talked in the hall before I went 
over to the police shack.” 

“That’ll be valuable evidence to establish your 
alibi, Bulldog—in the eyes of the law, in the eyes 
of the law.” 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 22 $ 

Then the Doctor puffed moodily at his pipe, and 
Carney could read the writing on the wall in the 
irritable little balloons of smoke that went up, the 
Doctor’s unexpressed meaning that gossips would 
say Jeanette had sworn falsely to clear him. 

Anderson resumed: 

“Hadley was evidently the last man playing cards 
with Seth, and there was considerable money at 
stake; that he was still up when the murder was dis¬ 
covered—these things are against him. Supposing 
he did shoot Seth, he might have come to the hotel 
and, seeing a light in the upper hall and hearing 
Jeanette moving about, might have sat in that dark 
corner till things had quieted down before going to 
his room.” 

“Hadley isn’t the kind to commit murder.” 

“To-night he was another kind of man—he was 
pretty drunk; and the man that’s drunk is like an 
engine that had lost the governing balls—he has lost 
control. And the shock of the murder may have 
sobered him enough to make him a bit cautious.” 

“But Shipley was out, too,” Carney objected. 

“Aye, he was; and he’s got a devilish lame story 
about going to see Cranford. I don’t like his face— 
it’s avariciously vicious—he’s greedy. But the law 
can’t hang a man for having a bad face; it takes 
little stock in the physiologist’s point of view.” 

Carney sat thinking hard. The full significance 
of the attached possibilities had been put clearly 
before him by the astute, canny Scotchman, and he 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


% 24 * 

realized that it was friendship. He was certain the 
Doctor suspected Shipley. 

“I wanted to get shut of yon two,” the Doctor 
added, presently, “for you’re the man that needs to 
get this cleared up, and you’re the man can do it, 
even as you caught Jack the Wolf. Is there any 
clue that we can follow up before the trail gets cold?” 

“There is, Doctor. There was a pack of marked 
cards in Seth’s pocket, and they’re gone.” 

“The man that has that pack is the murderer,” 
Dr. Anderson declared emphatically. 

“He is.” 

“And the wallet.” 

“Yes.” 

Then Carney explained to the Doctor that the 
marked pack had evidently belonged to Seth, and 
told of the change in cards, and the possibility that 
Shipley had stood in with Seth on the winnings, let¬ 
ting the latter do all the dirty work, perhaps helping 
Seth’s game along by raising the bet when he knew 
that Seth held the winning cards. 

Again the Doctor consulted his old briar pipe; 
then he said: “Either Shipley or somebody was in 
collusion with Seth, you think?” 

“Yes.” 

“If we could get that man—?” 

“Look here, Doctor,” and Carney put his hand on 
the other’s knee, “whoever has got that money will 
not try to take it out over the railroad, for it was in 
fifty-dollar bills of the Bank of Toronto.” 

“I comprehend: the wires, and the police at every 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 225 

important point; a search. [Aye, aye! What’ll he 
do, Bulldog?” 

“He’ll go out over the thieves’ highway, down the 
border trail to Montana or Idaho.” 

“My guidness! I think you’re right. Perhaps 
before morning somebody may be headin’ south with 
the loot. If it’s Shipley—I mean, anybody—he may 
have a colleague to take the money down over the 
border.” 

“Yes, the money; he’ll not try to handle it in 
Canada for fear of being trapped on the numbers.” 

“So you might not get the murderer after all,” 
Anderson said, meditatively; “just an accomplice 
who wouldn’t squeal.” 

“No; not with the money alone on him we 
wouldn’t have just what I want, but when we get a 
man with the marked pack in his pocket that’s the 
murderer. It was devilish fatalism that made him 
take that pack, like a man will cling to an old pocket- 
knife; they’re the tools of his trade, so to speak. 
And here in the mountains he could not handily come 
by another pack, perhaps.” 

“I comprehend. If the slayer goes down that 
trail he’ll have the marked cards with him still, but 
if he sends an accomplice the man’ll just have the 
money on him. Very logical, Bulldog.” 

Twice as they had talked Carney had stepped 
quickly, silently, to the door at the foot of the stair¬ 
way and listened; now he came back, and lowering 
his voice, said: “I get you, Doctor; it’s devilish 
square of you. I’m clear of this thing, I fancy, as 


226 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


you say, in the eye of the law, but for a good woman’s 
sake I’ve got to get the murderer.” 

“It would be commendable, Carney, if you can.” 

“Well, then, give these other men plenty of rope.” 

“I comprehend,” and Dr. Anderson nodded his 
head. 

“I’ve got a man—‘Oregon’ he’s known as—down 
at Big Horn Crossing; he’s there for my work; I’m 
going to pull out to-night and tell ‘Oregon’ to search 
every man that rides the border trail going south.” 

“I don’t know whether I can give you the proper 
authority, Bulldog—I’ll look it up with the town 
clerk.” 

Carney laughed, a soft, throaty chuckle of honest 
amusement. 

Piqued, the Doctor said irritably, “You’re think¬ 
ing, Bulldog, that the little town clerk and myself are 
somewhat of a joke as representing authority, eh?” 

“No, indeed, Doctor. I was thinking of ‘Oregon.’ 
He’s got his authority for everything, got it right 
in his belt; he’ll search his man first and explain 
afterwards; and when he gets the right man he’ll 
bring him in. First, I’m going to make a cast 
around the police shack with a lantern. Even by its 
light I may pick up some information. I’ll get 
Jeanette to stake me to a couple of days’ grub; I’ll 
take some oats for the buckskin and be back in three 
days.” 

“I’ll wait here till you have a look,” the Doctor 
declared; “there might be some clue you’d be leaving 
with me to follow up.” 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 227 

Carney secured a reflector lantern from a back 
room and, first kneeling down, examined the foot¬ 
steps that had been left in the soft black earth 
around the police shack door. He seemed to dis¬ 
cover a trial, for he skirted the building, stooping 
down with the lantern held close to the ground, and 
once more knelt under a back window. Here there 
were tracks of a heavy foot; some that indicated 
that a man had stood for some time there; that 
sometimes he had been peering in the window, the 
toe prints almost touching the wall. There were 
two deeply indented heel marks as if somebody had 
dropped from the window. 

Carney put up his hand and tested the lower half 
of the sash. He could shove it up quite easily. Next 
he drew a sheet of paper from his pocket—it was 
really an old letter—and with his pocket-knife cut 
it to fit a footprint that was in the earth. Then he 
returned to the front door, and with his paper gauge 
tested the different foot imprints, following them a 
piece as they lead away from the shack. He stood 
up and rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his brows drawn 
into a heavy frown of reflection, ending by starting 
off at a fast place that carried him to the edge of 
the little town. 

In front of a small log shack he stooped and com¬ 
pared the paper in his hand with some footprints. 
He seemed puzzled, for there were different boot 
tracks, and the one—the latest, he judged, for they 
topped the others—was toeing away from the shack. 

He straightened up and knocked on the door. 



228 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


There was no answer. He knocked again loudly; no 
answer. He shook the door by the iron handle 
until the latch clattered like a castanet: there was 
no sound from within. He stepped to a window, 
tapped on it and called, “Cranford, Cranford!” 
The gloomed stillness of the shack convinced him 
that Cranford had gone—perhaps, as he had inti¬ 
mated, to Bald Rock. 

He went back and fitted the paper into the top¬ 
most tracks, those heading away from the shack. 
The paper did not seem to fit—not quite; in fact, 
the other track was closer to the paper gauge. 

Back at the hotel he related to Dr. Anderson the 
result of his trailing. 

When he spoke of Cranford’s absence from the 
shack, the Doctor involuntarily exclaimed: “My 
God! that does complicate matters. I was thinking 
we might get a double hitch on yon Shipley by prov¬ 
ing from Cranford he hadn’t been near the latter’s 
shack. But now it involves Cranford, if he’s gone. 
He’s an unlucky devil, that, and I know, on the 
quiet, that he’s likely to get in trouble over some 
payments on a mine,—they’re threatening a suit for 
misappropriation of funds or something.” 

“You see, Doctor,” Carney said, “the sooner I 
block the likely get-away game the better.” 

“Yes. You pull out as soon as you like. I’ll 
have a search for Cranford, and I’ll generally keep 
things in shape till Sergeant Black comes—likely 
to-morrow he’ll be here. I’ll hold an inquest and, 
of course, the verdict will be ‘by someone un- 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 


229 

known.’ I’ll say that you’ve gone to hurry in Ser¬ 
geant Black.” 

When the Doctor had gone Carney went up¬ 
stairs to where Jeanette was waiting for him in the 
little front sitting room. 

With her there was little beyond just the horror 
of the terrible ending to it. Her life with Seth Long 
had been a curious one, curious in its absolute empti¬ 
ness of everything but just an arrangement. There 
was no affection, no pretense of it. She was like a 
niece, or even a daughter, to Seth; their relationship 
had been practically on that basis. Her father had 
been a partner of Long in some of his enterprises, 
enterprises that had never been much of anything 
beyond final failure. When his partner had died 
Seth had assumed charge of the girl. It was per¬ 
haps the one redeeming feature in Seth’s ordinary 
useless life. 

Now Jeanette and Carney hardly touched on the 
past which they both knew so well, or the future 
about which, just now, they knew nothing. 

Carney explained, as delicately as he could, the 
situation; the desirability of his clearing his name 
absolutely, independent of her evidence, by finding 
the murderer. He really held in his mind a some¬ 
what nebulous theory. He had not confided this 
fully to Dr. Anderson, nor did he now to Jean¬ 
ette ; just told her that he was going away for two 
or three days and would be supposed to have gone 
after the Mounted Policeman. 

He told Her about the disappearance of the marked 





230 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


pack, and explained how much depended upon the 
discovery of its present possessor. 

Part II 

It was within an hour of daybreak when Carney, 
astride his buckskin, slipped quietly out of Bucking 
Horse, and took the trail that skirted the tortuous 
stream toward the south. He had had no sleep, 
but that didn’t matter; for two or three days and 
nights at a stretch he could go without sleep when 
necessary. Perhaps when he spelled for breakfast, 
as the buckskin fed on the now drying autumn grass, 
he would snatch a brief half hour of slumber, and 
again at noon; that would be quite enough. 

When the light became strong he examined the 
trail. There were several tracks, cayuse tracks, the 
larger footprints of what were called bronchos, the 
track of pack mules; they were coming and going. 
But they were cold trails, seemingly not one fresh. 
Little cobwebs, like gossamer wings, stretched across 
the sunken bowl-like indentations, and dew sparkled 
on the silver mesh like jewels in the morning sun. 

It was quite ten o’clock when Carney discovered 
the footprints of a pony that were evidently fresh; 
here and there the outcupped black earth where the 
cayuse had cantered glistened fresh in the sunlight. 

Carney could not say just where the cayuse had 
struck the trial he was on. It gave him a depressed 
feeling. Perhaps the rider carried the loot, and 
had circled to escape interception. But when Car- 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 


231 


ney came to the cross trail that ran from Fort Steel 
to Kootenay the cayuse tracks turned to the right 
toward Kootenay, and he felt a conviction that the 
rider was not associated with the murder. With 
that start he would be heading for across the border; 
he would not make for a Canadian town where he 
would be in touch with the wires. 

Along the border trail there were no fresh tracks. 

It was toward evening when Carney passed 
through the Valley of the Grizzley’s Bridge—past 
the gruesome place where Fourteen-foot Johnson 
had been killed by Jack the Wolf; past where he 
himself had been caught in the bear trap. 

The buckskin remembered it all; he was in a 
hurry to get beyond it; he clattered over the nar¬ 
row, winding, up-and-down footpath with the eager 
hasty step of a fleeing goat, his head swinging nerv¬ 
ously, his big lop ears weaving back and forth in 
apprehension. 

Well beyond the Valley of the Grizzley’s Bridge, 
past the dark maw of the cave in which Jack the 
Wolf had hidden the stolen gold, Garney went, 
camping in the valley, that had now broadened out, 
when its holding walls of mountain sides had blank¬ 
eted the light so that he travelled along an obliter¬ 
ated trail, obliterated to all but the buckskin’s finer 
sense of perception. 

At the first graying of the eastern sky he was up* 
and after a snatch of breakfast for himself and the 
buckskin, hurrying south again. No one had passed 
in the night for Carney had slept on one side of 



232 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


the trail while the horse fed or rested on the other, 
with a picket line stretched between them: and there 
were no fresh tracks. 

At two o’clock he came to the little log shack just 
this side of the U. S. border where Oregon kept his 
solitary ward. Nobody had passed, Oregon ad¬ 
vised; and Carney gave the old man his instructions, 
which were to search any passer, and if he had the 
fifty-dollar bills or the marked cards, hobble him 
and bring him back to Bucking Horse. 

Over a pan of bacon and a pot of strong tea Ore¬ 
gon reported to his superior all the details of their 
own endeavor, which, in truth, was opium running. 
That was his office, to drift across the line casually, 
back and forth, as a prospector, and keep posted 
as to customs officers; who they were, where the 
kind-hearted ones were, and where the fanatical ones 
were; for once Carney had been ambushed, practi¬ 
cally illegally, five miles within Canadian territory, 
and had had to fight his way out, leaving twenty 
thousand dollars’ worth of opium in the hand of a 
tyrannical customs department. 

At four o’clock Carney sat the buckskin, and 
reached down to grasp the hand of his lieutenant. 

“I’ll tell you, Bulldog,” the latter said, swinging 
his eyes down the valley 'toward the southwest, 
“there’s somethin’ brewin’ in the way of weather. 
My hip is pickin’ a quarrel with that flat-nosed bit 
of lead that’s been nestin’ in a j’int, until I just nat¬ 
ural feel as if somebody’d fresh plugged me.” 

Carney laughed, for the day was glorious. The 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 233 

valley bed through which wandered, now sluggishly, 
a green-tinged stream, lay like a glorious oriental 
rug, its colors rich-tinted by the warm flood of golden 
light that hung in the cedar and pine perfumed air. 
The lower reaches of the hills on either side were 
crimson, and gold, and pink, and purple, and emerald 
green, all softened into a gentle maze-like tapestry 
where the gaillardias and monkshood and wolf-wil¬ 
low and salmonberry and saskatoon bushes caressed 
each other in luxurious profusion, their floral bloom 
preserved in autumn tawny richness by the dry moun¬ 
tain air. 

And this splendor of God’s artistry, this won¬ 
drous great tapestry, was hung against the sombre 
green wall of a pine and fir forest that zigzagged 
and stood in blocks all up the mountain side like 
the design of some giant cubist. 

Carney laughed and swung his gloved hand in a 
semicircle of derision. 

“It’s purty,” Oregon said, “it’s purty, but I’ve 
seen a purty woman, all smilin’ too, break out in a 
hell of a temper afore you could say ‘hands up.’ 
My hip don’t never make no mistakes, ’cause it ain’t 
got no fancies. It’s a-comin’. You ride like hell, 
Carney; it’s a-comin’. Say, Bulldog, look at that,” 
and Oregon’s long, lean, not over-clean finger pointed 
to the buckskin’s head; “he knows as well as I do 
that the Old Man of the Mountains is cookin’ up 
somethin’. See ’em mule lugs of his—see the white 
of that eye? And he ain’t takin’ in no purty scenery, 
he’s lookin’ over his shoulder down off there,” and 


234 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


Oregon stretched a long arm toward the west, 
toward the home of the blue-green mountains of ice, 
the glaciers. 

“It’s too early for a blizzard,” Carney contended. 

“It might be, if they run on schedule time like 
the trains, but they don’t. I froze to death once 
in one in September. I come back to life again, 
’cause I’d been good always; and perhaps, Bulldog, 
your record mightn’t let you out if you got caught 
between here and Buckin’ Horse in a real he-game 
of snow hell’ry. The trail runs mostly up narrow 
valleys that would pile twenty feet deep, and I 
reckon, though you don’t care overmuch yourself 
what gener’ly happens, you don’t want to give the 
buckskin a raw deal by gettin’ him into any fool 
finish. He knows; he wants to get to a nice little 
silk-lined sleepin’ box afore this snoozer hits the 
mountains. Good-bye, Bulldog, and ride like hell 
—the buckskin won’t mind; let him run the show—he 
knows, the clever little cuss.” 

Carney’s slim fingers, though steel, were almost 
welded together in the heat of the squeeze they got 
in Oregon’s bear-trap of a paw. 

The trail here was like a prairie road for the 
valley was flat, and the buckskin accentuated his ap¬ 
prehensive eagerness by whisking away at a sharp 
canter. Carney could hear, from over his shoulder, 
the croaking bellow of Oregon who had noticed this: 

“He knows, Bulldog. Leave him alone. Let him 
run things hisself!” 

Though Carney had laughed at Oregon’s gloomy 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 235 

forecast, he knew the old man was weather-wise, 
that a lifetime spent in the hills and the wide places 
of earth had tutored him to the varying moods of 
the elements; that his super-sense was akin to the 
subtle understanding of animals. So he rode late 
into the night, sometimes sleeping in the saddle, as 
the buckskin, with loose rein, picked his way up 
hill and down dale and along the brink of gorges 
with the surefootedness of a big-horn. He camped 
beneath a giant pine whose fallen cones and needles 
had spread a luxurious mattress, and whose balsam, 
all unstoppered, floated in the air, a perfume that 
was like a balm of life. 

Almost across the trail Carney slept lest the 
bearer of the loot might slip by in the night. 

He had lain down with one gray blanket over him; 
he had gone to sleep with a delicious sense of warmth 
and cosiness; he woke shivering. His eyes opened 
to a gray light, a faint gray, the steeliness that fil¬ 
tered down into the gloomed valley from a paling 
sky. A day was being born; the night was dying. 

An appalling hush was in the air; the valley was 
as devoid of sound as though the very trees had died 
in the night; as if the air itself had been sucked out 
from between the hills, leaving a void. 

The buckskin was up and picking at the tender 
shoots of a young birch. It had been a half-whin- 
nying snort from the horse that had wakened Car¬ 
ney, for now he repeated it, and threw his head up, 
the lop ears cocked as though he listened for some 
break in the horrible stillness, watched for something 





236 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


that was creeping stealthily over the mountains from 
the west. 

Carney wet the palm of his hand and held it up. 
It chilled as though it had been dipped in evaporating 
spirits. Looking at the buckskin Oregon’s croak 
came back: 

“He knows: ride like hell, Bulldog!” 

Carney rose, and poured a little feed of oats 
from his bag on a corner of his blanket for the 
horse. He built a fire and brewed in a copper pot 
his tea. Once the shaft of smoke that spiraled lazily 
upward flickered and swished flat like a streaming 
whisp of hair; and above, high up in the giant pine 
harp, a minor string wailed a thin tremulous note. 
The gray of the morning that had been growing 
bright now gloomed again as though night had fled 
backwards before the thing that was in the mountains 
to the west. 

The buckskin shivered; the hairs of his coat stood 
on end like fur in a bitter cold day; he snapped at 
the oats as though he bit at the neck of a stallion; 
he crushed them in his strong jaws as though he 
were famished, or ate to save them from a thief. 

In five minutes the strings of the giant harp above 
Carney’s head were playing a dirge; the smoke of 
his fire swirled, and the blaze darted here and there 
angrily, like the tongue of a serpent. From far 
across the valley, from somewhere in the rocky 
caverns of the mighty hills, came the heavy moans 
of genii. It was hardly a noise, it was a great op- 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 237 

pression, a manifestation of turmoil, of the turmoil 
of God’s majesty, His creation in travail. 

Carney quaffed the scalding tea, and raced with 
the buckskin in the eating of his food. He became 
a living thermometer; his chilling blood told him 
that the temperature was going down, down, down. 
The day before he had ridden with his coat hung to 
the horn of his saddle; now a vagrant thought flashed 
to his buffalo coat in his room at the Gold Nugget. 

He saddled the buckskin, and the horse, at the 
pinch of the cinch, turned from his oats that were 
only half eaten, and held up his head for the bit. 

Carney strapped his dunnage to the back of the 
saddle, mounted, and the buckskin, with a snort of 
relief, took the trail with eager steps. It wound 
down to the valley here toward the west, and little 
needles stabbed at the rider’s eyes and cheeks as 
though the air were filled with indiscernible diamond 
dust. It stung; it burned his nostrils; it seemed to 
penetrate the horse’s lungs, for he gave a snorting 
cough. 

And now the full orchestra of the hills was filling 
the valleys and the canyons with an overture, as if 
perched on the snowed slope of Squaw Mountain 
was the hydraulicon of Vitruvius, a torrent raging 
its many throats into unearthly dirge. 

Carney’s brain vibrated with this presage of the 
something that had thrilled his horse. In his ears 
the wailing, sighing, reverberating music seemed to 
carry as refrain the words of Oregon: “Ride like 
hell, Carney! Ride like hell!” 




238 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


And, as if the command were within the buck¬ 
skin’s knowing, he raced where the path was good; 
and where it was bad he scrambled over the stones 
and shelving rocks and projecting roots with cat¬ 
like haste. 

In Carney’s mind was the cave, the worked-out 
mine tunnel that drove into the mountain side; the 
cave that Jack the Wolf had homed in when he 
murdered the men on the trail; it was two hours 
beyond. If he could make that he and the buckskin 
would be safe, for the horse could enter it too. 

In the thought of saving his life the buckskin oc¬ 
cupied a dual place; that’s what Oregon had said; 
he had no right to jeopardize the gallant little steed 
that had saved him more than once with fleet heel 
and stout heart. 

He patted the eager straining neck in front of 
him, and, though he spoke aloud, his voice was little 
more in that valley of echo and reverberation than 
a whisper: “Good Patsy boy, we’ll make it. Don’t 
fret yourself tired, old sport; we’ll make it—the 
cave.” 

The horse seemed to swing his head reassuringly 
as though he, too, had in his heart the undying cour¬ 
age that nothing daunted. 

Now the invisible cutting dust that had scorched 
Carney’s face had taken visible form; it was like 
fierce-driven flour. Across the valley the towering 
hills were blurred shapes. Carney’s eyelashes were 
frozen ridges above his eyes; his breath floated away 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 239 

in little clouds of ice; the buckskin coat of the horse 
had turned to gray. 

Sometimes at the turn of a cliff was a false lull 
as if the storm had been stayed; and then in twenty 
yards the doors of the frozen north swung again 
and icy fingers of death gripped man and beast. 

And all the time the white prisms were growing 
larger; closer objects were being blotted out; the 
prison walls of ice were coming closer; it was more 
difficult to breathe; his life blood was growing slug¬ 
gish; a chill was suggesting indifference—why fight? 

The horse’s feet were muffled by the ghastly white 
rug, the blizzard was spreading over the earth that 
the day before had been a cloth of gold; it was like 
a winding sheet. 

Carney could feel the brave little beast falter and 
lurch as the merciless snow clutched at his legs where 
it had swirled into billows. 

To the man direction was lost—it was like being 
above the clouds; but the buckskin held on his way 
straight and true; fighting, fighting, making the glori¬ 
ous fight that is without fear. To stop, to falter, 
meant death; the buckskin knew it; but he was tir¬ 
ing. 

Carney unslung his picket line, put the loop around 
his chest below his arms, fastened it to the saddle 
horn, leaving a play of eight feet, and slipping to 
the ground, clutched the horse’s tail, and patted 
him on the rump. The buckskin knew; he had 
checked for five seconds; now he went on again, 
the weight off his back being a relief. 


240 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


The change was good. Carney had felt the chill 
of death creeping over him in the saddle; the deadly 
chill, the palpitating of the chest that preluded a false 
warmth that meant the end, the sleep of death. Now 
the exertion wined his blood; it brought the battling 
back. 

Time, too, like direction, was a haze in the man’s 
mind. Two hours away the cave had been, and 
surely they had struggled on hour after hour. It 
scarce mattered; to draw forth his watch and look 
was a waste of energy, the vital energy that weighed 
against his death; an ounce of it wasted was folly; 
just on through the enveloping curtain of that white 
wall. 

Carney had meant to remount the horse when he 
was warmer, when he himself was tiring; but it 
would be murder, murder of the little hero that had 
fought his battles ever since they had been together. 
The buckskin’s flanks were pumping spasmodically, 
like the sides of a bellows; his withers drooped; his 
head was low hung; he looked lean and small— 
scarce mightier than a jack rabbit, knee deep in the 
shifting sea of snow. 

But the cave must be near. Carney found himself 
repeating these words: “The cave is near, the cave 
is near, Patsy; on, boy—the cave is near.” His 
mind dwelt on the wood that he had left in the cave 
when he took Jack the Wolf to Bucking Horse; 
of how cosy it would be with a bright fire going, and 
the baffled blizzard howling without. Yes, he would 
make it. Was his life, so full of the wild adventures 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 


241 


that he had always won out on, to be blotted by 
just a snowstorm, just cold?” 

He took a lofty stand against this. He was pos¬ 
sessed of a feeling that it was a combat between 
the crude elements and his vital force of mental 
stamina. If he kept up his courage he would win 
out, as he always had. It was just Excelsior and 
Success, just- 

There was a swirl of oblivion; he had flown 
through space and collided with another world; there 
had been some sort of a gross shock; he was alone, 
floating through space, and passing through snow¬ 
laden clouds. There was a restful exhilaration, such 
as he had felt once when passing under an anesthetic 
—Nirvana. 

Then the cold snout of some abnormal creature 
in these regions of the beyond pressed against his 
face. Gradually, as though waking from a dream— 
it was the muzzle of the buckskin nosing him back to 
consciousness. He struggled painfully to his feet. 
How heavy his legs were; at the bottom of them 
were leaden-soled diver’s boots. His brain, not 
more than half clearing at that, he realized that he 
and the buckskin had slid from a treacherous shelf 
of rock, and fallen a dozen feet; the snow, unwit¬ 
tingly kind, catching them in a lap of feathery soft¬ 
ness. But for the gallant horse he would have lain 
there, never to rise again of his own volition. 

They scrambled back to the trail, he and the 
little horse, and they were going forward. Oregon’s 




242 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


command was working out—“Let the buckskin 
have his own way.” 

If they had been out on the prairie undoubtedly 
they would have gone around in a circle—in fact, 
Carney once had done so—and the cold would have 
been more intense, the sweep of the wind more life¬ 
sapping; but here in the valleys in places the snow 
piled deeper; it was like surf rolling up in billows; 
it took the life force out of man and horse. 

Carney was so wearied by the sustained struggle 
that was like a man battling the waves, half the 
time beneath the waters, that his flagged senses be¬ 
came atrophied, numbed, scarce tabulating anything 
but the fact that they still held on toward the cave. 

Then he heard a bell. Curious that. Was it all 
a dream—or was this the real thing: that he was 
in a merry party, a sleighing party—that they were 
going to a ball in a stone palace? He could hear 
a sleigh bell. 

Then he was nice and warm. He stretched him¬ 
self lazily. It was a dream—he was waking. 

When he opened his eyes he saw a fire, and the 
flickering firelight played on stone walls. Beside 
the fire was sitting a man; behind him something 
stamped on the stone floor. 

He turned his head and saw the buckskin asleep 
on his feet with low-hung head. 

“How d’you feel, Stranger?” the man at the fire 
asked, rising up, and coming to his side. 

Carney stared; he was supposed to be back there 
fighting a blizzard. And now, remembrance, cours- 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 


243 


mg with langourous speed through his mind, he was 
in the cave where he had held Jack the Wolf a 
prisoner. 

He sat up and pondered this with groggy slow¬ 
ness. 

“Some horse, that, Stranger.” The man’s voice 
that had sounded thinly sinister had a humanized 
tone as he said this. 

Carney’s tongue was dry, puckered from the low¬ 
ered vitality. He tried to answer, and the man, 
noting this, said: “Take your time, Mister. You’re 
makin’ the grade all right, all right. I knowed you 
was just asleep. Try this dope.” 

He poured some hot tea into a tin cup. It toniced 
the tired Carney; it was like oil on the dry bearings 
of a delicate machine. 

“Some April shower,” the man said, piling wood 
on the fire. “I heerd a horse neigh—it was kind 
of a squeal, and my bronch havin’ drifted out to 
sea ahead of this damn gale, I thinks he’s come back. 
I heerd his bell, and I makes a fight with ol’ white 
whiskers—’twan’t more’n ’bout ten yards at that 
—and there’s that danged rat of yours, and he won’t 
come in to the warm ’cause you’d got pinned agin 
a boulder and snow; he seemed to know that if he 
pulled too hard he’d break your danged neck. Then 
we got you in—that’s all. Some horse!” 

This and the warmth and the tonic tea brought 
Carney up to date. He held out his hand. 

But a curious metamorphosis in the man startled 
Carney. He turned surlily to shake up the fire, 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


244 

throwing over his shoulder: “I ain’t done nothin’; 
you’ve got to thank that little jack rabbit fer pullin’ 
you through. I went out after my own bronch.” 

“But ain’t I all right, Stranger?” Carney asked 
gently, for he had met many men in the waste places 
with just this curious antipathy to an unknown. 
Oregon was like that. Men living in the wide outside 
became like outcast buffalo bulls, in their supersen¬ 
sitiveness—every man was an enemy till he proved 
himself. 

The man straightened up, and his eyes that were 
set too close together each side of the fin-like nose 
rested on Carney in a squinting look of distrust. 

“I ain’t never knowed but one man was all right, 
and the Mounted Police hounded him till he give 
up.” 

The cave man turned the stem of the pipe he had 
been smoking toward the horse. “That buckskin 
with the mule ears belongs to Bulldog Carney. Are 
you him, or are you a hawse thief?” 

“How do you know the horse ?” 

“I got reason a-plenty to know him. He cleaned 
me out in Walla Walla when he beat Clatawa; and 
I guess you’re the racin’ shark that cold-decked us 
boys with this ringer.” 

Now Bulldog knew why the aversion. 

“I’m Carney,” he admitted; “but it was the gam¬ 
blers put up the job; I just beat them out.” 

“Where d’you come from now?” the cave man 
asked. 

“Bailey’s Ferry,” Carney answered in oblique pre- 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 245 

caution. He noticed that the other hung with pe¬ 
culiar intensity on his answer. 

“How long was you fightin’ that blizzard?” 

“Since daylight—when I broke camp.” Carney 
looked at his watch; it was three o’clock. “How 
long have I been here?” 

“A couple of hours. Was you runnin’ booze or 
hop, Bulldog?” 

Carney started. Perhaps the cave man was con¬ 
veying a covert threat, an intimation that he might 
inform on him. “Don’t let’s talk shop,” he an¬ 
swered. 

“I ain’t got no sore spots on my hide,” the other 
sneered; “I’m an ord’nary damn fool of a gold 
chaser, and I’ve been up in the Eagle Hills trailin’ 
a ledge of auriferous quartz that’s buck-jumpin’ 
acrost the mountains so damn fast I never got a 
chanct to rope it. I’d a-stuck her out if the chuck 
hadn’t petered. When I’d just got enough sow¬ 
belly to see me to the outside I pulled my freight. 
That’s me, Goldbug Dave.” 

The other’s statement flashed into Carney’s mind 
a sudden disturbing thought— food! He, himself, 
had about one day’s supply—had he it? Pie turned 
to his dunnage and saddle that lay where they had 
been tossed by the cave man when he had stripped 
them from the horse. His bacon and bannock were 
gone! 

Wheeling, he asked, “Did you see anything of my 
grub?” 

“All that was on your bronch is there, Bulldog. 



246 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


I don’t rob no man’s cache. And all I got’s here,” 
he held up in one hand a slab of bacon, about four 
pounds in weight, and in the other a drill bag, in 
its bottom a round bulge of flour the size of a cocoa- 
nut. “That’s got to get me to Bailey’s Ferry,” he 
added as he dropped them back at the head of his 
blankets. 

A subconscious presentment of trouble caused 
Carney, through force of habit, to caress the place 
where his gun should have been—the pigskin pocket 
was empty. 

The other man bared his teeth; it was like the 
quiver of a wolf’s lip. “Your Gatt must ’ve kicked 
out back there in the snow; I see it was gone.” 

Bulldog knew this was a lie; he knew the cave 
man had taken his gun. He ran his eye over his 
host’s physical exhibit—when the time came he would 
get his gun back or appropriate the one so in evi¬ 
dence in the other’s belt. He went back to his dun* 
nage, a thought of the buckskin in his mind; to his 
joy he found the horse’s oats safe in the bag. This 
fastened the idea he had that the other had stolen 
his food, for his bacon and bannock had been in the 
same bag, they could hardly have worked out and 
the oats remain. 

He sat down again, and mentally arranged the 
situation. He could hear outside the blizzard still 
raging; he could see in the opening the swirling snow 
that indeed had gradually raised a barrier, a white 
gate to their chamber. This kept the intense cold 
out, a cold that was at least fifty below zero. The 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 247 

snow would lie in the valleys through which the trail 
wound twenty feet deep in places. They had no 
snowshoes; he had no food; and Goldbug Dave’s 
store was only sufficient for a week with two men eat¬ 
ing it. 

He knew that there was something in Dave’s mind; 
either a bargain, or a fight for the food. They might 
be imprisoned for a month; a chinook wind might 
come up the next day, or the day following that 
would melt the snow with its soft warm kiss like 
rain washes a street. 

Carney was not hungry; the strain had left him 
fagged—he was hungry only for rest; and the buck¬ 
skin, he knew, felt the same desire. 

He lay down, and had slept two hours when he 
was wakened by the sweet perfume of frying pork. 

Casually he noticed that but one slice of bacon lay 
in the pan. He watched the cook turn it over and 
over with the point of his hunting knife, cooking it 
slowly, economically, hoarding every drop of its 
vital fat. When the bacon was cooked the chef 
lifted it out on the point of his knife and stirred some 
flour into the gravy, adding water, preparing that 
well-known delicacy of the trail known as slum- 
gullion. 

Dave withdrew the pan and let it rest on the stone 
floor just beside the fire; then he looked across af 
Carney, and, catching the gray of his opened eyes, 
worded the foreboding thought that had been in 
Carney’s mind before he fell asleep. 

“I ain’t got no call to give you a show-down on 




248 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


this, Bulldog, but I’m goin’ to. When I snaked you 
in here that didn’t cost me nothin’; anyways you was 
down and out for the count. Now you’ve come back 
it ain’t up to me to throw my chanct away by de¬ 
clarin’ you in on this grub; I’d be a damn fool to 
do it—I’d be just playin’ agin myself.” 

Then he spat in the fire and held the pan over its 
blaze to warm the slimy mixture. 

Carney remained silent, and his host, as if mak¬ 
ing out a case for himself continued: “We may 
be bottled up here for a week, or a month. Two men 
ain’t got no chanct on that grub-pile, no chanct.” 

“Why don’t you eat it then?” and Carney sat up. 

“I could, ’cause it’s mine; but I got a proposition 
to make—you can take it or leave it.” 

“Spit it out.” 

“It’s just this”—the fox eyes shifted uneasily to 
the little buckskin, and then back to Carney’s face— 
“I’ll share this grub if, when it’s gone, you cut in 
with the bronch.” 

Carney shivered at this, inwardly; facially he 
didn’t twitch an eye; his features were as immobile 
as though he had just filled a royal flush. The propo¬ 
sition sounded as cold-blooded as if the other man 
had asked him to slit the throat of a brother for a 
cannibalistic orgy. 

“It’s only ord’nary hawse sense,” Dave added 
when Carney did not speak; “kept in the snow that 
meat’d last us a month. Feelin’s don’t count when 
a man’s playin’ fer his life, and that’s what we’re 
doin’.” 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 


249 


“I don’t dispute the sense of your proposition, 
my kind friend,” Carney said in a well-mastered 
voice: “I’m not hungry just now, and I’ll think it 
over. I’ve got a sneaking regard for the little buck¬ 
skin, but, of course, if I don’t get out he’d starve to 
death anyway.” 

“Take your time,” and the owner of the pan 
pulled it between his legs, ate the slice of bacon, and 
with a tin spoon lapped up the glutinous mess. 

Carney watched this performance, smothering the 
anger and hunger that were now battling in him. It 
was a one-sided argument; the other man had a gun, 
and Carney knew that he would use it the minute 
his store of provisions were gone—perhaps before 
that. And Carney was determined to make the dis¬ 
cussion more equitable. Once he could put a hand 
on the dictator, the lop-sided argument would true 
itself up. As to killing the little buckskin that had 
saved his life—bah! the very idea of it made his 
fingers twitch for a grasp of the other’s windpipe. 

For a long time Carney sat moodily turning over 
in his mind something; and the other man, having 
lighted his pipe, sat back against the wall of the 
cave smoking. 

At last Carney spoke. “There’s a way out of 
this.” 

“Yes, if a chinook blows up Kettlebelly Valley— 
there ain’t no other way. The manna days is all 
gone by.” 

“There’s another way. This is an old worked- 
out mine we’re in, the Lost Ledge Mine.” 



250 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


“She’s worked out, right enough. There never 
was nothin’ but a few stringers of gold—they soon 
petered out.” 

“When the men who were working this mine 
pulled out they left a lot of heavy truck behind,” 
Carney continued. “There’s a forge, coal, tools, 
and, what I’m thinking of, half a dozen sets of horse 
snowshoes back there. I could put a set of those 
snowshoes on the buckskin and make Bucking Horse 
in three or four days. He wore them down in the 
Coeur d’Alene.” 

“If you had the grub,” Dave snapped; “where’re 
you goin’ to get that?” 

“Half of what you’ve got would keep me up that 
long on short rations.” 

“And what about me—where do I come in on 
givin’ you half my grub?” 

“The other half would keep you alive till I could 
bring a rescue party on snowshoes and dog-train.” 

Dave sucked at his pipe, pondering this proposi¬ 
tion in silence; then he said, as if having made up 
his mind to do a generous act: “I’ll cut the cards 
with you—your bronch agin half my chuck. If you 
win you can try this fool trick, if I win the bronch 
is mine to do the same thing, or use him to keep us 
both alive till a chinook blows up.” 

From an inside pocket of his coat he brought forth 
a pack of cards, and slid them apart, fan-shaped, on 
the corner of his blanket. 

Carney was almost startled into a betrayal. On 
the backs of the cards winged seven blue doves . It 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 


251 


was the pack that had been stolen from Seth Long’s 
pocket, and the man that sat behind them was the 
murderer of Seth Long, Carney knew. Yes, it was 
the same pack; there was the same slight variation 
of the wings. In a second Carney had mastered him¬ 
self. 

“I guess it’s fair,” he said hesitatingly; “let me 
think it over—I’m fond of that little cuss, but I 
guess a man’s life comes first.” 

He sat looking into the fire thinking, and if Dave 
had been a mind reader the gun in his belt would 
have covered Carney for the latter was thinking, 
“There are three aces in that pack and the fourth 
is in my pocket.” 

Then he spoke, shifting closer to the blanket on 
which the other sat: 

“I’ll cut!” 

“Draw a card, then,” Dave commanded, touching 
the strung-out pack. 

Carney could see the acute-angled wings of the 
middle dove on a card; he turned it up—it was the 
ace of diamonds. 

“Some draw!” Dave declared. Then he deftly 
flipped over the ace of spades, adding: “Horse and 
horse, Bulldog; draw agin.” 

“Shuffle and spread-eagle them again, for luck,” 
Carney suggested. 

Dave gathered the cards, gave them a riffle, and 
swept them along the blanket in a tenuous stream. 

Carney edged closer to the ribbon of blue-doved 
cards; and the owner of them, a sneer on his lips, 



252 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


craned his head and shoulders forward in a gam¬ 
bler’s eagerness. 

Intensity, too, seemed to claim Bulldog; he rested 
his elbows on his knees and scanned the cards as if 
he hesitated over the risk. There, a little to the 
right, he discovered the third ace, the only one in 
the pack. If he turned that Dave could not tie him 
again. He knew that the minute he turned over 
that card the cave-man would know that he had 
been double-crossed in his sure thing; his gun would 
be thrust into Carney’s face; perhaps—once a killer 
always a killer—he would not hesitate but would 

kill. 

So Carney let his right hand hover carelessly a 
little beyond the ace, while his left crept closer to 
Dave’s right wrist. 

“Why don’t you draw your card?” Dave snarled. 
“What’re you-” 

Carney’s right hand flopped over the ace of clubs, 
and in the same split second his left closed like the 
jaws of a vise on Dave’s wrist. 

“Turn over a card with your left hand, quick!” 
he commanded. 

Dave, as if in the act of obeying, reached for his 
gun with the left hand, but a twist of the imprisoned 
wrist, almost tearing his arm from the shoulder 
socket, turned him on his back, and his gun was 
whisked from its pigskin pocket by Carney. 

Then Bulldog released the wrist and commanded: 
“Draw that card, quick, or I’ll plug you; then we’ll 
talk!” 



SEVEN BLUE DOVES 253 

Sullenly the other turned the card: as if in mock¬ 
ery it was a “jack.” 

“You lose,” Carney declared. “Now sit back 
there against the wall.” 

Cursing Bulldog for a cold-deck sharp, the other 
sullenly obeyed. 

Then Carney turned up the end of Dave’s blanket 
and found, as he knew he should, Hadley’s plethoric 
wallet, and his own six-gun. This proceeding had 
hushed the other man’s profane denunciation; his 
eyes held a foreboding look. 

Carney stepped back to the fire, saying: 

“You’re Tacoma Jack—you’re the man that staked 
Seth Long to this marked pack.” He drew from his 
pocket the ace of hearts and held it up to Tacoma’s 
astonished view. “Here’s the missing ace.” 

He put it back in his pocket and resumed: “That 
was to rob Hadley, when you found he was leaving 
the money in Seth’s strong box while he went with 
you up into the hills to look at a mine that didn’t 
exist. If he had taken the money with him he would 
have been killed instead of Seth. When the game 
was over that night, Seth signaled you with a lamp 
in the window, and when you went in to settle with 
him the sight of the money was too much, and you 
plugged him.” 

“It’s a damn lie! I was up in the mountains and 
don’t know nothin’ about it.” 

“You were standing at that back window of the 
police shack when Seth and Hadley were playing 
alone, and when you shot Seth you were smooth 



254 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


enough not to open the front door for fear some 
one might be coming and see you, but jumped from 
the back window.” 

Carney took from his pocket the paper templet 
he had made of the tracks in the mud. 

“I see from the soles of your gum-shoe packs 
that this gets you.” He held it up. 

“It’s all a damned pack of lies, Bulldog; you’ve 
been chewin’ your own hop. Who’s goin’ to swaller 
that guff?” 

Carney had expected this. He knew Tacoma was 
of the determined one-idea type; lacking absolute 
eye-witness evidence he would deny complicity even 
with a rope around his neck. He realized that with 
the valley lying twenty feet deep in snow he couldn’t 
take Tacoma to Bucking Horse; in fact with him 
that was not the real desired point. If Carney had 
been a Mounted Policeman the honor of the force 
would have demanded that he give up his life trying 
to land his prisoner; but he was a private individual, 
trying to keep clean the name of a woman he had a 
high regard for—Jeanette Holt. He wanted a writ¬ 
ten confession from this man. Bringing in the stolen 
money and the cards wouldn’t be enough; it might be 
said that he, himself, had taken these two things 
and returned them. 

Even the punishment of Tacoma didn’t interest 
him vitally. Two thieves had combined to rob a 
stranger, and over a division of the spoil one had 
been killed—it was not, vitally, Carney’s funeral. 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 255 

Now to gain the confession he stretched a point, 
saying: 

“They believe Seth Long. He says you shot him.” 

Startled out of his cunning, Tacoma blundered: 
“That’s a damn lie—Seth’s as dead’s a herrin’!” 

“How do you know, Tacoma?” and Carney 
smiled. 

The other, stunned by his foolish break, spluttered 
sullenly, “You said so yourself.” 

“Seth’s dead now, Tacoma, but you were in too 
much of a hurry to make your get-away. Dr. An¬ 
derson and I found him alive, and he said that you, 
Tacoma Jack, shot him. That’s why I pulled out 
on this trail.” 

The two men sat in silence for a little. Tacoma 
knew that Carney was driving at something; he knew 
that Carney could not take him to Bucking Horse 
with the trail as it was; the buckskin would have all 
he could do to carry one man, and without huge 
moose-hunting snowshoes no man could make half a 
mile of that trail. 

Carney broke the silence: “You made a one-sided 
proposition, Tacoma, when you had the drop on 
me; now I’m going to deal. I’d take you in if I 
didn’t value the little buckskin more than your car¬ 
cass ; I don’t give a damn whether you’re hanged or 
die here. I’m going to cut from that slab of bacon 
six slices. That’ll keep you alive for six days with 
a little flour I’ll leave you. I can make Bucking 
Horse in three days at most with snowshoes on the 
buckskin; then I’ll come back for you with a dog- 




256 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


train and a couple of men on snowshoes. You’ve 
got a gambling chance; it’s like filling a bob-tailed 
flush—but I’m going to let you draw. If the chinook 
comes up the valley kissing this snow before I get 
back you’ll get away; I’d give even a wolf a fight¬ 
ing chance. But I’ve got to clear a good woman’s 
name; get that, Tacoma!” and Carney tapped the 
cards with a forefinger in emphasis. “You’ve got to 
sign a confession here in my noteboook that you 
killed Seth Long.” 

“I’ll see you in hell first! It’s a damn trap—I 
didn’t kill him!” 

“As you like. Then you lose your bet on the 
chinook right now; for I take the money, your gun, 
your boots, and all the grub” 

As Carney with slow deliberation stated the terms 
Tacoma’s heart sank lower and lower as each article 
of life saving was specified. 

“Take your choice, quick!” Carney resumed; “a 
grub stake for you, and you bet on the chinook if 
you sign the confession; if you refuse I make a clean¬ 
up. You starve to death here, or die on the trail, 
even if the chinook comes in two or three days.” 

There was an ominous silence. Carney broke it, 
saying, a sharp determination in his voice: “Decide 
quick, for I’m going to hobble you.” 

Tacoma knew Bulldog’s reputation; he knew he 
was up against it. If Carney took the food—and 
he would—he had no chance. The alternative was 
his only hope. 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 


257 


“I’ll sign—I got to!” he said, surily; “you write 
and I’ll tell just how it happened.” 

“You write it yourself—I won’t take a chance 
on you: you’d swear I forged your signature, but a 
man can’t forge a whole letter.” 

He tossed his notebook and pencil over to the 
other. 

When Tacoma tossed it back with a snarling oath, 
Carney, keeping one eye on the other man, read it. 
It was a statement that Seth Long and Tacoma Jack 
had quarreled over the money; that Seth, being half 
drunk, had pulled his gun; that Tacoma had seized 
Seth’s hand across the table, and in the struggle Seth 
had been shot with his own gun. 

Carney closed the notebook and put it in his 
pocket, saying: “This may be true, Tacoma, or it 
may not. Personally I’ve got what I want. If 
you’re laughing down in your chest that you’ve put 
one over on Bulldog Carney, forget it. To keep 
you from making any fool play that might make me 
plug you I’m going to hobble you. When I pull 
out in the morning I’ll turn you loose.” 

Carney was an artist at twisting a rope security 
about a man, and Tacoma, placed in the helpless 
condition of a swathed babe, Carney proceeded to 
cook himself a nice little dinner off the latter’s bacon. 
Then he rubbed down the buckskin, melted some 
snow for a drink for the horse, gave him a feed of 
oats, and stretched himself on the opposite side of 
the fire from Tacoma, saying: “You’re on your good 



258 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


behavior, for the minute you start anything you lose 
your bet on the chinook.” 

In the morning when Carney opened his eyes day¬ 
light was streaming in through the cave mouth. He 
blinked wonderingly; the snow wall that had all but 
closed the entrance had sagged down like a weary 
man that had huddled to sleep; and the air that swept 
in through the opening was soft and balmy, like the 
gentle breeze of a May day. 

Carney rose and pushed his way through the lit¬ 
tle mound of wet, soggy snow and gazed down the 
valley. The giant pines that had drooped beneath 
the weight of their white mantles were now dropping 
to earth huge masses of snow; the sky above was 
blue and suffused with gold from a climbing sun. 
Rocks on the hillside thrust through the white sheet 
black, wet, gnarled faces, and in the bottom of the 
valley the stream was gorged with snow-water. 

A hundred yards down the trail, where a huge 
snow bank leaned against a cliff, the head and neck 
of a horse stood stiff and rigid out of the white 
mass. About the neck was a leather strap from 
which hung a cow-bell. It was Tacoma’s cayuse 
frozen stiff, and the bell was the bell that Carney 
had heard as he was slipping off into dreamland 
behind the little buckskin. 

Carney turned back to where the other man lay, 
his furtive eyes peeping out from above his blanket 
■—they were like rat eyes. 

“You win your bet, Tacoma,” Carney said; “the 
chinook is here.” 


SEVEN BLUE DOVES 259 

Tacoma had known; he had smelt it; but he had 
lain there, fear in his heart that now, when it was 
possible, Bulldog would take him in to Bucking 
Horse. 

“The bargain stands, don’t it, Bulldog?” he 
asked: “I win on the chinook, don’t I?” 

“You do, Tacoma. Bulldog Carney’s stock in 
trade is that he keeps his word.” 

“Yes, I’ve heard you was some man, Bulldog. 
If I’d knew you’d pulled into Buckin’ Horse that 
day, and was in the game I guess I’d a-played my 
hand dif’rent—p’raps it’s kind of lucky for you I 
didn’t know all that when I drug you in out of the 
blizzard.” 

Carney waited a day for the snow to melt before 
the hot chinook. It was just before he left that 
Tacoma asked, like a boy begging for a bite from 
an apple: “Will you give me back them cards, Bulb 
dog—I’d be kind of lost without them when I’m 
alone if I didn’t have ’em to riffle.” 

“If I gave you the cards, Tacoma, you’d never 
make the border; Oregon is waiting down at Big¬ 
horn to rope a man with a pack of cards in his pocket 
that’s got seven blue doves on the back; and I’m 
not going to cold-deck you. After you pass Oregon 
you take your own chances of them getting you. 




vr 


EVIL SPIRITS 

The Rockies, their towering white domes like 
sheets of ivory inlaid with blue and green, the glacier 
gems, looked down upon the Vermillion Range, and 
the Vermillion looked down upon the sienna prairie 
in which was Fort Calbert, as Marathon might have 
looked down upon the sea. 

In Fort Calbert the Victoria Hotel, monument to 
the prodigality of Remittance Men, held its gray 
stone body in aloofment from the surrounding box¬ 
like structures of the town. 

In a front room of the Victoria six men sat around 
an oak table upon which was enthroned a five-gal¬ 
lon keg with a spiggot in its end. It was an occa¬ 
sion. 

Liquor was prohibited in Alberta, but the little 
joker in the law was that a white citizen, in good 
standing, might obtain a permit for the importation 
of five gallons. 

Jack Enders held the patent right that made the 
keg on the table possible. 

Five of the six were Remittance Men, the sixth 
man, Bulldog Carney, in some particulars, was dif¬ 
ferent. His lean, tanned face suggested a'ttain- 
260 


EVIL SPIRITS 


261 

ment; the gray, restful eyes held power and abso¬ 
lute fearlessness; they looked out from under light 
tawny eyebrows like the eyes of an eagle. 

Like Aladdin’s lamp, the amber fluid that trickled 
through the spiggot transported, mentally, the Eng¬ 
lishmen back to the Old Land. It was always that 
way with them when there was a shatterment of 
the caste shell, an effacement of the hauteur; then 
they damned the uncouth West as a St. Helena, and 
blabbed of “Old London.” 

A blond giant, FitzHerbert, was saying: “Jack 
Enders, here, is in no end of a fazzle; his pater 
is coming out uninvited, and Jack has a floaty idea 
that the old gent will want to see that ranch.” 

“The ranch that the Victoria’s worthy drayman, 
worthy Enders, is supposed to have acquired with 
the several remittances dear pater has remitted,” 
Harden explained to Carney. 

“Oh, Lord! you fellows!” Enders moaned. 

His desolated groan was drowned by a droning 
call that floated in from the roadway; it was a 
weird drool—the droning, hoarse note of a tug’s 
whistle. 

Harden sprang to his feet crying: “St. Ives! a 
Thames ‘Puffing Billy’! Oh, heavens! it makes me 
homesick.” 

Harden had named it; it was the absolute warn¬ 
ing note of a busy, pudgy little Thames tug. 

Some of them went over the table in their eager¬ 
ness to investigate. Outside they stood aghast 
in silent wonderment; the hot, scorching sun lay 



262 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


like a yellow flame across the most archaic, disrepu¬ 
table caravan of one that had ever cast its discon¬ 
solate shadow upon the main street. A dejected, 
piebald cayuse hung limply between the shafts of 
a Red River cart whose appearance suggested that 
it had been constructed from broken bits of the ark. 
In the cart sat a weary semblance of humanity. 

The man’s face and hands were encrusted with a 
plastic mixture of dust and sweat till he looked like 
a lamellar creature—an armadillo. He turned small 
sullen eyes, in which was an impatient, querulous 
look, upon the six. 

“It’s a Trappist monk from the merry temple of 
Chartreuse,” FitzHerbert declared solemnly. 

“Do it again, bargee,” Harden begged; “blow 
your horn, O Gabriel—there’s vintage inside; one 
blast to warm the cockles of our hearts and we’ll 
set you happy.” 

The little eyes of the charioteer fastened upon 
Harden with his cogent proposition; he made a 
trumpet of his palms, and blew the tug boat blast. 
He did it sadly, as though it were an occupation. 

But Enders, with a spring, was in the cart. He 
picked up the slight figure and tossed it to the blond 
giant, who, catching the thing of buckskin and leather 
chapps, turned back into the bar. 

“Sit you there, foghorn,” FitzHerbert said, as he 
lowered the unresisting guest to a chair. 

The guest’s eyes had grown large with the con¬ 
firmatory evidence of a keg; the spiggot fascinated 
him; it was like a crystal to a gazer. He shoved 


EVIL SPIRITS 263 

out a dry furred tongue and peeled from his lips 
the rim of lava that darkened their pale contours. 

Harden had replenished the glasses, and the one 
he passed to the prodigal was the fated calf—it was 
full. 

The guest raised the glass till the sunlight, slanting 
through a window, threw life into the amber fluid, 
and gazed lovingly upon it. 

“Oh, my aunt!” Harden bantered; “the man who 
has come up out of the stillness has a toast.” 

The little man coughed, and from the flat chest 
floated up through thin tubes a voice that was soft 
and cultured as it wafted to their astonished ears: 
“Gentlemen, the Queen.” 

FitzHerbert, who had been in the Guards before 
something had happened, started. It was the toast 
of a vice-president of an officer’s mess at dinner. 

The six sprang to their feet, carried aloft their 
glasses, drank, and sat down again in silence. Fitz- 
Herbert’s big voice had a husk in it as he asked, 
“Where is the regimental band, sir?” 

The little man’s shoulders twitched as he an¬ 
swered: “The band is outside: we’ll have the band¬ 
master in for a glass of wine, presently.” 

“By George!” FitzHerbert gasped, for he knew 
this was a custom at mess; and Carney, who also 
knew, gazed at the little man, and his gray eyes 
that were thought hard, had gone blue. 

“Now,” Harden declared, “if somebody should 
dribble in who could give us twelve booms from ‘Big 
Ben,’ we’d have a perfect ecstasy of the blues.” 


264 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


At that two men came in through the front door, 
their scarlet tunics showing blood red in the glint of 
sunshine that played about their shoulders. 

“Oh, you, Sergeant Jerry Platt!” the blond giant 
cried; “here is where the regulations bear heavy on 
a man, for we can’t invite you to join up.” 

The Sergeant laughed. “You bad boys; if some¬ 
body hasn’t a permit for this I’ll have to run you 
all in.” 

Platt’s companion, Corporal McBane, lengthened 
his dour face and added: “Drinkin’ unlawful whisky 
is a dreadful sin.” 

“Shut your eyes, you two chaps, and open your 
mouths,” FitzHerbert bantered; “that wouldn’t be 
taking a drink.” 

“Let me see the permit,” Platt asked, ignoring 
the chaff. 

When he had examined the official script he said, 
“Sorry, gentlemen, to have troubled you.” 

As the two policemen turned away Platt nodded 
to Carney, the jovial cast of his countenance passing 
into a slightly cynical transition. 

“Good fellows,” Harden remarked; “our Scotch 
friend had tears of regret standing in his eyes at 
sight of the keg.” 

“Yes, and they have a beastly task,” FitzHerbert 
declared; “this liquor law is all wrong. To keep it 
from the Indians white men out here have to be 
treated like babes or prisoners. That’s why every¬ 
body is against the police when the law interferes 


EVIL SPIRITS 


265 

with just rights, but with them when they’re putting 
down crime.” 

“The worst part of it is,” Carney added, “that 
sometimes a bull-headed man who has all the in¬ 
stincts of a thief catcher becomes a sergeant in the 
force, and can’t interpret the law with any human 
intelligence. Fortunately, it’s only one once in a 
while.” 

The ragged stranger shook himself out of the 
gentle state of quiescent restfulness the whisky had 
produced to say: “There will be a freshet of this 
stuff in Fort Calbert in a few days.” 

“Put me down for a barrel, O joyful stranger,” 
FitzHerbert exclaimed eagerly. 

Carney’s gray eyes had widened a little at the 
stranger’s statement. 

“You can apply to Superintendent Kane,” the lit¬ 
tle man answered; “he will have the handling of it, 
I fancy—a carload.” 

FitzHerbert’s blue eyes searched Carney’s, but 
the latter sat as if playing poker. 

“Tell us about it, man,” Enders suggested. 

“I pulled into Fort Calbert this morning,” the 
other contributed, “and a jocular constable took me 
to the Fort as a vagrant.” 

“Your equipage was against you,” Enders advised. 

“Don’t think anything of that,” FitzHerbert 
said; “the hobos have been running neck-and-neck 
with the gophers about here; they burned up live 
freight cars in two weeks. The police have been 
shaken up over it by the O.C.” 





266 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


The little man drew from a pocket of his coat 
a bag of gold, and clapped it gently on the table. 

“You had your credentials,” and FitzHerbert 
nodded. 

“I’d been washing gold down on the bars at Vic¬ 
toria. It was this way. I have a farm there, and 
last year I put in thirty acres of oats. It was a 
rotten crop and I didn’t cut it. This year it came 
up a volunteer crop—a splendid one; I sold it to 
Major Grisbold, at Fort Saskatchewan, standing. 
Now I’m on my holidays, just a little pleasure jaunt.” 

“The constable took you to the Fort?” FitzHer¬ 
bert suggested, for the little man’s mind had re¬ 
turned to the convivial association of his glass. 

“By Jove! forgive me, gentlemen—about the 
whisky: While I was waiting for an audience with 
the Polica Ogema I heard, through an open door, 
a pow-wow over a telegram that had just come. Its 
general statement was that whisky was being loaded 
at Winnipeg on car 6100 for delivery at Bald Rock. 
The Major gave the Sergeant orders to seize the 
car here.” 

“Who owns the whisky?” FitzHerbert asked. 

“I heard the O.C. say, ‘It’s that damn Bulldog 
Carney again!’ so I suppose-” 

The speaker’s eyes opened in wondering per¬ 
plexity at the blizzard of merriment that cut o'ff 
his supposition; neither could he understand why 
FitzHerbert clapped a hand on his shoulder and 
cried, “Old top, you’re a joy!” 

The laughter had but died down when Carney 



EVIL SPIRITS 


267 


rose, and, addressing the little man, held out his 
hand, saying: “I’m very glad to have met you, sir.” 
Then he was gone. 

“I like that man,” the derelict declared. “What’s 
his name—you didn’t introduce me?” 

“That gentleman is Mr. Bulldog Carney,” Fitz- 
Herbert answered solemnly. 

“Oh, I say!” the other gasped. 

“Don’t worry; you’ve probably done him a good 
turn,” FitzHerbert answered. 

The stranger blinked his solemn eyes as if de¬ 
bating something; then he related: “My name is 
Reginald Llewellyn Fordyce-Anstruther; from An- 
struther Hall one can drive a golf ball into either 
one of three counties—Surrey, Sussex, or Kent.” 

In retaliation each of the five presented himself 
at decorous length. 

From the Victoria Carney strolled to the railway 
station and sent a telegram to John Arliss at Winni¬ 
peg. It was an ordinary ranch-type of message, 
about a registered bull that was being shipped. In 
the evening he had an answer to the effect that the 
bull would be well looked after. 

Then Sergeant Jerry Platt paid several visits daily 
to the railway station for little chats with a con¬ 
stable who patrolled its platform from morning 
till night. 

On the sixth day a gigantic, black-headed, drab 
snake crawled across the prairie from the east, and 
toward its tail one ioint of the vertebrae was nurm* 
bered 6100. 




268 BULLDOG CARNEY 

Sergeant Jerry was on hand, and his eye bright¬ 
ened; the advice the Major had received was re¬ 
liable, evidently. 

The station master knew nothing about the car; 
it was through freight—not for Fort Calbert. 

Bulldog Carney had wandered unobtrusively 
down to the station; a dry smile hovered about his 
lips as he listened to the argument between the 
amiable Jerry and the rather important magnate of 
the C. P. R. 

“Lovely!” he muttered once to himself as he 
wandered closer to the discussion. 

It was a case of when great bodies collide. The 
C. P. R. was a mighty force, and its agents some¬ 
times felt the tremendousness of their power: the 
Mounted Police were not accustomed to being balked 
when they issued an order. 

Jerry wanted the seals broken on the car. This 
the agent flatly refused to do; rules were rules, and 
he only took orders, re railroad matters, from his 
superior officer. 

Jerry was firm; but the famous Jerry Platt smile 
never left his face for long. “There’s booze in that 
car, Mr. Craig,” he declared. 

“How do you know?” the station agent retorted. 

“Perhaps we got the info from Bulldog Carney, 
there,” and Jerry laughed. 

Perhaps Bulldog had been waiting for a legitimate 
opening, for he jumped: 

“I think it is altogether incredible, Sergeant 
Jerry,”’ he answered; “Ottawa would never let that 


EVIL SPIRITS 


269 


much liquor get out of Ontario—they have use for 
it down that way.” 

“It’s booze,” Jerry asserted flatly; “and I’m going 
to tell you something on the level, Bulldog. You’re 
a hell of a nice fellow, but if I get the evidence I 
expect to get you’ll go into the pen just as though 
I never set eyes on you.” 

Carney laughed. “When you say the word, Jerry, 
and I can’t make a get-away, I’m yours without 
trouble. But I don’t mind laying you a bet of ten 
dollars that somebody’s been pulling your Super¬ 
intendent’s leg. A carload of whisky is simply pre¬ 
posterous.” 

This little by-play had given Sergeant Platt time 
for a second thought. He could see that the agent 
was one of those duty-set men, and would not break 
the seal of the car; and without authority he did 
not care to take it on himself. 

“Look here, Craig,” he said, “cut that car off. 
I’ll get the O.C. to come down; in the meantime 
you might wire your divisional point how to act. 
We’ve simply got to detain the car even if we use 
force; but I don’t want to get you into trouble.” 

A look of pleasure suffused Carney’s face; for or 
against him, he admired brains in a man. And 
Jerry’s determination and bravery were also well 
known. He turned to the station master saying: 

“I don’t want to horn in on this round-up, Craig, 
but I fancy that’s the proper way. I’ve a curiosity 
to see just what is in that car.” 

Sergeant Platt waited patiently; and the conduc- 




270 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


tor of the freight train was now on the platform 
asking for his “line clear.” 

Craig was up against a new situation. His com¬ 
pany was powerful, and would back him up if he were 
absolutely in the right, but they also expected of a 
man a certain amount of intelligence plus his orders; 
they didn’t encourage friction between their em¬ 
ployees and the Mounted. 

“Cut off 6100, Jim, and run her into the sidin’,” 
he said curtly to the conductor. And as a panacea 
to his capitulation he added: “If you’ve got some¬ 
body else’s freight there, Jerry, I’d advise you to 
apply for a job as brakeman, you’re so damned fond 
of runnin’ the C. P. R.” 

Platt laughed and, turning to the constable, said: 
“Gallop down to the Fort, report to the O.C., and 
ask him for a written order to break the seals on 
this car, as the agent refuses to.” 

So 6100 was lanced from the drab snake’s body, 
and then the reptile crawled up the grade toward 
the foothills, the tail-end joint, the caboose, flick¬ 
ing about derisively as it hobbled over the uneven 
track. 

An inkling of what was on had come to the ears 
of the citizens; casually the worthy people saun¬ 
tered down to the station. They were thirsty souls, 
for permits did not grow on every lamp post. That 
a whole carload of whisky had been seized bred a 
demoralizing thirst. It was doomed, of course, 
to be poured out on the parched earth, but the event 
had an attraction like a funeral. 


EVIL SPIRITS 


271 

At the end of half an hour the constable returned, 
not only with a written order, but accompanied by 
Major Kane himself. Behind came a heavy police 
wagon, drawn by an upstanding pair of bays. 

The Major was a jaunty, wiry little man; his 
braided cap, cocked at a defiant angle on his grizzled 
head, suggested the comb of a Black-Red, a game 
cock. He had originally been a sergeant in the Im¬ 
perial forces, and in his speech there was the savor 
of London fog. 

“What’s this, my good man ?” The words popped 
from his thin lips as he addressed the agent. “You 
should have broken the seals on that car: do so 
now!” 

“You’ll take the responsibility, then, sir,” Craig 
answered. 

“My word! we’re always doing that, always— 
that’s what we’re here for, to take responsibility; 
the Force is noted for it.” 

There was an ominous squint in the little man’s 
eye, which was fastened on Carney rather than the 
agent, as he said this. Now, led by the Major, 
a procession headed for the car of interest. 

The station agent clipped the seal wire, and as 
the door was slid open, the sunlight streaming in 
picked out the goodly forms of several oak barrels. 

The Major’s lips clipped out a sharp “Ha!” and 
Sergeant Jerry grinned at Bulldog Carney. 

It must be confessed that Bulldog’s gray eyes held 
a trifle of astonishment over this exhibit. 

At a command two constables had popped into 





BULLDOG CARNEY 


the car, and the Major, turning to Sergeant Jerry, 
said, “Back the wagon up, Sergeant, and take this 
stuff to the fort.” 

The station master interposed: “I think, Major, 
that if you’re seizing this stuff as liquor you’d better 
make sure. Them bar’ls looks a bit too greasy 
and dirty to be whisky bar’ls.” 

“Just a clever little covering up of the trail by a 
foxy whisky-runner,” the Major said pleasantly, 
and let his shrewd eyes almost wink at Carney. “But 
I’ll humor you, Mr. Craig. Have one of your sec¬ 
tion-men bring a sledge and we’ll knock in the head 
of a barrel; it’s got to be destroyed; the devilish 
stuff gives us trouble enough.” 

One of the yard-men brought a sledge; a barrel 
was rolled out, stood on end, and the yard-man 
swung his heavy, long-nosed spike-driving sledge. 
At the second blow it went through, and a little 
fountain of syrup fluttered up like a spray of gold 
in the sunlight. 

“Oh, my aunt!” FitzHerbert exclaimed; “you’ve 
struck it sweet this time, Major.” 

A little group of Sarcees who had viewed with 
apathetic indifference the turmoil of the whites, 
swarmed forward like so many bees, dipped their 
dirty fingers in the treacle, and lapped it off with 
grunts of appreciation. It was Long Dog-leg who 
grunted: “Heap big chief, Redcoat man! Him 
damn good; break him more!” 

“Dump out another barrel,” the nettled Major 
commanded. 


EVIL SPIRITS 


This oaken casket when shattered by the sledge 
cast oil on the troubled waters—literally, for it con¬ 
tained good healthy kerosene. 

The citizens yelped with delight. Dog-leg begged 
the Major not to waste these things of an Indian’s 
desire, but give them to his tribe. 

The station agent, realizing that he had been on 
the winning horse in his objection, could not resist 
a little crow. “Well, Major, you’ve roped some¬ 
thing at last. For the next thirty days I can sit up 
nights answering correspondence. The man that 
owns this car of groceries will want to know what 
the hell the company’s up to broaching his goods. 
The Superintendent of the Western Division will 
want to know why I side-track freight billed through 
Fort Calbert. You said you’d take responsibility, 
but you’ve given me a big lot of work, and I ain’t 
none too well paid as it is. Somebody’s double- 
crossed you.” 

“And, by George! I’ll keep after that somebody 
till I get him, if I have to follow him to the North 
Pole!” Major Kane answered crossly. 

Then the constables investigated the car’s interior. 
There were barrels of sugar, biscuit, bundles of 
brooms, boxes of salt cod, tins of peas, beans—in 
fact the car’s interior was a replica of a well-ordered 
grocery store rather than the duplicate of a bar¬ 
room. 

The Major was mystified. They certainly had got 
the car that had been wired on by the Secret Intelli¬ 
gence Department as containing whisky. 



BULLDOG CARNEY 


27 4 

He had no word of another car; what could he 
do? Beyond Fort Calbert were several small places 
on the line where there were neither police nor men 
who either feared or were friendly to the law. He 
turned to the station master, saying: 

“Craig, can’t you wire ahead and see if you can 
get that car of whisky cut off? I believe it’s on that 
train.” 

“How’d I know what car to cut out; besides, IVe 
no jurisdiction outside my own station. As it is, 
the company’ll have a bill of damages to pay, and, 
of course, somebody on a three-legged stool at head 
office’ll try to cut it out of my pay. You’d better 
have your men put those packages back in the 
car, so I can seal it up. I’m going in to wire the 
Superintendent of the Western Division at Winnipeg 
to report the whole thing to your Commissioner at 
Regina.” 

Some Stoney Indians, with the Sarcees, watched 
sadly the return of the broken barrels of desire to 
the car; not since they had looted the H. B. Coy’s 
store at Fort Platt had there been such a pleasing 
prospect of something for nothing. 

The constables mounted their horses and with the 
police wagon departed. 

Sergeant Jerry Platt, in a little detour passed close 
to Carney, saying, as he slacked his pace: “Bulldog, 
you’re too damn hot for this country; Montana, I 
would suggest as a wider field. But we’ll get the 
goods on you yet, old top.” 


EVIL SPIRITS 275 

“Then Montana might prove attractive, dear 
Jerry.” 

The Major walked away stiffly, pondering over 
this mixed-up affair. He would wire to one of his 
outposts up in the hills; but he was handicapped 
by his now want of data. With whisky as the bone 
of contention everybody’s hand would be against 
the force—the very train men, if they could get 
away with it. 

Carney had viewed the incident with complacency. 
If 6100 contained groceries then the other car, for 
there was one, had got safely through with its 
holding of liquor. Carney had known before his 
telegram was sent that Jack Arliss was shipping 
two cars—one of goods and one of whisky; one 
consigned to John Ross, and one to Dan Stewart; 
and John Ross was also of the gang, though os¬ 
tensibly an industrious storekeeper in the next town 
to Bald Rock, Dan Stewart’s habitat. Of course, 
neither car would be billed as liquor. How Arliss 
had double-crossed the police, either by shifting the 
goods or juggling the shipping bills, did not mat¬ 
ter. 

Carney’s telegram telling Arliss that the police 
at Fort Calbert were going to seize 6100 made it 
a sure thing for that gentleman to shoot through the 
whisky under another number, and a day ahead of 
the suspected car. 

Back at the Fort, Major Kane called in Sergeant 
Jerry for a consultation. Jerry had been in the 
force for many years; he had risen from the position 


276 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


of scout and knew every trick and curve of the 
game; besides, which was almost a greater asset, 
he was liked of the citizens. 

“Bulldog ’ll stay right here,” he advised; “he’s 
got brains, the cool kind that don’t sputter in the 
pan. It wouldn’t do a bit of good to round him 
up, for we haven’t got a thing on him—not a thing. 
He’s so well liked that nobody’ll give him away; 
he plays the game like Robin Hood used to. Dan 
Stewart ’ll handle this stuff; but till you’ve clapped 
your hands on somebody with the goods we’ll be 
guessing. A lot of it’ll be run into the plains—there 
isn’t a rancher wouldn’t buy a barrel of it, and swear 
he’d never heard of it. Every white man is against 
this law, sir. They don’t think Carney’s breakin’ 
the law.” 

The Major pondered a little, then he said: “In¬ 
struct the Sergeant Major to send out a patrol up 
toward the foothills, with orders to get some of 
this consignment, and some of the runners at any 
cost.” 

So that night a patrol rode into the western 
gloom. 

Next day, as Sergeant Jerry strolled out of the 
stockade gate, he was accosted by a French half- 
breed, who intimated that for a matter of ten dol¬ 
lars, paid in hand, he would tell Jerry where he 
could nab a big lot of whisky as it was being run 
the following night. 

The informant refused Jerry’s invitation to ac¬ 
company him to the Commanding Officer. To insist 


EVIL SPIRITS m 

would only frighten him, and a frightened breed 
always lied; so Jerry, taking a gambling chance, 
passed over the ten, and learned that in the night 
a whisky caravan would come along the trail that 
crossed the ford at Whispering Water heading for 
Fort Calbert itself. 

This was quite in keeping with Carney’s audac¬ 
ity; and Jerry, still wondering that anybody would 
give away Bulldog, carried the information to the 
Major. 

“We’ll have to act on it,” Major Kane declared; 
“sometimes a breed will sell his own wife for a slab 
of bacon.” 

When night had settled down over the prairie 
Sergeant Jerry Platt, Corporal McBane, and three 
constables rode quietly through the gates, and, skirt¬ 
ing the west wall of the stockade, drifted away to 
the southwest. 

At ten o’clock the police were snugly hidden in 
the heavy willow bush of a little valley through which 
rippled Whispering Water; their horses had been 
taken back on the trail by one constable. A bull’s- 
eye lantern fastened to a stake just topped a rock. 
In this position, when the slide was pulled, its rays 
would light up the trail where it dipped from the 
cut-bank to the stream. 

They lay for an hour in the little bluff of willows. 
A moon that had hung in the western sky wander¬ 
ing lazily toward the distant saw-toothed ridge of 
the Rockies, had passed behind the gigantic stone 
wall, and a sombre gloom had obliterated the un- 



278 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


even edge of the cut-bank. In the belly of the valley 
it was just a well of blackness, cut at times by a pen¬ 
ciled line of silver where the waters swirled around 
a cutting rock. The stillness was oppressive for the 
air was dead; no winger of the night passed; no 
animal of the prairie, gopher or coyote, disturbed 
the solemn hush; nobody spoke; in each one’s mind 
was the unworded thought that they waited for a 
man that was known to be without fear, a man to 
whom odds meant little or nothing. 

As they lay chest to earth in the heavy grass Cor¬ 
poral McBane pivoted his body on elbows close to 
Sergeant Jerry and whispered: “I’m glad, man, 
you suggested the flare. In the dark, wi’ promiscu¬ 
ous shootin’, there might be killin’, and I’d no like 
to pot Bulldog myself’, even if he is a whisky run¬ 
ner.” 

Jerry laughed a soft, throaty chuckle. “You’d 
have a fine chance, Mac, with that old .44 Enfield 
pepper-box against Carney with his .45 Colt; he 
just plays it like a girl fingerin’ the keys of a piano; 
those gray cat-eyes of his can see in the dark.” 

“Well, wi’ the flare on him he’ll quit. It’s only 
damn fools that won’t wait for a better chance.” 

“We had him once before,” Jerry said reflectively, 
“and he gave us the slip; just for the joke of it, too, 
for it was that train hold-up, and it was proved after 
he had nothing to do with it. But listen to this, 
Scottie, we both like Bulldog, but if he bucks us, 
we belong to the Force.” 

“Aye, I’m aware of it, Sergeant; and Bulldog 


EVIL SPIRITS 


279 

himself wouldn’t thank us to spit on our salt. But 
what makes you think he’ll be with this outfit?” 

“Because it’s just one of his damned mad capers 
to run it into Fort Calbert under our noses, and 
he wouldn’t ask anyone to run the risk and not be 
there.” 

But McBane had a Scotch reluctance to believe in 
foolish bravado. “It’s no sense, Sergeant,” he ob¬ 
jected, “and Carney’s vera clever.” 

Suddenly, on top of the cut bank where the trail 
dipped through the sandy wall, something blurred 
the blue-black sky; there was a heavy, slipping, slid¬ 
ing noise as if a giant sheet of sand-paper were being 
shoved along the earth. There was the creaking 
of wood on wood, the dull thump of an axle in a 
hub; a softened, just perceptible thud, thud of muf¬ 
fled hoofs. 

The shuffling noise that was as if some serpent 
dragged its length over the deep sands of the cut 
was opposite the armed men when the voice of Ser¬ 
geant Platt rang out in a sharp command: 

“Halt! hands up—you are covered! If you move 
we fire!” 

At the first word, “Halt!” the bull’s-eye threw its 
arrogant glare of light upon the creeping thing of 
noise. It painted against the cut-bank the bleary- 
eyed cayuse, the archaic Red River cart, and the 
unformidable figure of the Honorable Reginald 
Fordyce-Anstruther—that was all. That is to say, 
all but five square tins, atop of which sat the outlaw, 
Reggie. 




280 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


It was a goblined, pathetically inadequate figure 
sitting atop the tins, the lean attenuated arms held 
high as if in beseechment. 

Sergeant Jerry cursed softly; then he laughed; 
and Corporal McBane exclaimed: “Ma God! it’s 
like catchin’ a red herrin’.” 

But Jerry, careful scout, whispered: “Circle to 
the rear, Corporal; keep out of the light; it may be 
a blind.” 

Soon McBane’s voice was heard from the cut- 
bank: “All clear, Sergeant.” 

Then Sergeant Jerry, stepping into*'the open, ex¬ 
amined the exhibit. Instead of carrying concealed 
weapons Reggie had a fair load of concealed spirits; 
he was fully half-drunk. Questions only brought 
some nebulous answers about the permit being up 
in Fort Calbert, and that he was bringing in the 
goods. Even Jerry’s proverbial good nature was 
sorely taxed. 

“I’m gettin’ fed up on these damned tricks of 
Bulldog’s,” he growled, “for that’s what it is.” 

“I’m not sure,” McBane objected; “this ninny 
may ha’ blabbed, and yon breed, hearin’ it, saw a 
chance to make a shillin’ or two.” 

However, Reggie, and his cayuse and the whisky 
were attached and escorted in to barracks. 

Perhaps it was the fortifying Courage of the 
whisky the villain had imbibed that caused him to 
bear up remarkably well under this misfortune of 
the very great possibility of losing his not-too-valu- 


EVIL SPIRITS 281 

able outfit; or he may have known of some fairy 
who would make good his fine. 

In the morning the liquor was very formally 
taken out to the usual sacrifice place, just at the back 
of the barracks, and in the presence of the Super¬ 
intendent and a small guard of constables, poured 
in a gurgling libation upon the thirsting sand-bank 
of a little ravine. Then the empty tins were tossed 
disdainfully into the coulee. 

Back in the Fort Major Kane said: “This was 
all a blind, Sergeant Platt; none of the stuff will 
come down this way—they’ll run it up among the 
miners and lumberjacks. Take Lemoine the scout, 
and pick up some of the patrol up about the Pass.” 

In half an hour Sergeant Jerry rode out from 
the Fort into the west; and by the middle of the 
afternoon Corporal McBane reported to the O.C. 
that the few constables remaining in the Fort were 
drunk—half were in the guard room. 

The Major was horrified. Where had the liquor 
come from? Corporal McBane didn’t know. 

In his perplexity the Major, stick in hand, stalked 
angrily to the scene of the morning sacrifice. The 
mound apparently had not been disturbed. He had 
a nebulous idea that perhaps the men had chewed 
up the saturated earth. He jabbed viciously at the 
spot with his walking stick as if spearing the alco¬ 
holic demon. At the third thrust his stick went 
through, suggesting a hole. With boot and hand the 
Major sent the sand flying. A foot down he came 
upon a gunny sack. Beneath this was a neat cross- 



282 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


hatching of willow wands resting atop an iron grat¬ 
ing that was supported by a tub; a tub boned from 
the laundry, but the strong odor that struck the 
Superintendent’s nostrils was not suds—it was 
whisky. 

He yanked the tub out of the cavity and kicked it 
into the coulee. Then he stood up and mopped his 
perspiring forehead, muttering: “The devils! the 
cursed stuff! It’s that damned outlaw, Bulldog Car¬ 
ney, that’s put them up to this. The liquor that poor 
waster brought in was just a blind, the tip from the 
half-breed was part of his devilish plot. It’s a 
game to put my men on the blink while he runs that 
carload.” 

Rage swirled in the Major’s heart as he turned 
toward the Fort; but before he had reached the 
gates his sense—and the little man had lots of it— 
laid embargo on his tongue, and he passed silently 
to his quarters to sit on the verandah and curse softly 
to himself. 

He was sick of the whole whisky business. He 
had been in the Mounted from the very first, fif¬ 
teen years or so of it now. They had not come 
into the Territories to be pitted against the social 
desires of the white inhabitants who were in all 
other things law abiding; but here this very thing 
took up more than half their time and energy. And 
it was a losing game with the cunning and desires of 
a hundred men pitted against every one of his 
force. 

There were rumors that it was soon to be changed 


EVIL SPIRITS 


283 


—the trade legitimatized; that is, for Alberta to 
the Athabasca border. With a small army of clever 
whisky traders, no licenses, no supervision against 
them, it was a matter of impossibility to keep liquor 
from the half-breeds who were a sort of carry-on 
station to the Indians. 

To trail murderers, gun-men, cattle and horse 
thieves, day after day across the trackless prairie, 
or the white sheet-of-snow buried plain, was an ex¬ 
hilarating game—it was something to stimulate the 
espirit de corps; a Mounted Policeman, feeling, 
when he had landed his man, full reward for all his 
hardships and danger; but to poke around like an 
ordinary city sleuth and bag some poor devil of a 
breed with a bottle of whisky, only to have him up 
before the magistrate for a small fine was, to say the 
least, disquieting; it made his men half ashamed of 
their mission. 

Of course the present incident was not petty; it 
was like Bulldog Carney himself—big; and the 
Major would have given, right there, a half-year’s 
pay to have bagged Bulldog, and so, perhaps have 
broken up the ring. 

But determined as the force was, the British law 
was greater still. Without absolute, convicting evi¬ 
dence Carney would have been acquitted, and the 
Major perhaps censured for making a mistake. 

At headquarters was a fixed edict: “Take no 
position from which you will have to recede,” really, 
“Don’t make mistakes.” 

As the little man sat thinking over these many 




284 BULLDOG CARNEY 

things, sore at heart at the quirky thrust Fate had 
dealt him, for he loved the Mounted, loved his du¬ 
ties, loved the very men, until sometimes breaking 
under the strain of service in the lonely wastes 
they cracked and a weak streak showed—then he 
was a tiger, a martinet; no sparing: “Out you go, 
you hound!” he would snap; “you’re a disgrace to 
the Force, and it’s got to be kept clean.” 

Then “Dismissed” would be written opposite the 
man’s name in the annual report that went from the 
Commissioner at Regina to the “Comptroller at 
Ottawa.” 

Suddenly the chorus of a refrain floated to his 
ears from the guard house—it was “The Stirrup 
Cup.” 

“God, England!” the little man groaned. 
“That’s Cavendish singing,” he muttered. 

How long and broad the highway of life; how 
human, how weakly human those who travelled it! 
Cavendish, a younger son of a noble family, a con¬ 
stable at sixty cents a day! They were all like that 
—not of noble family, but adventurers, roamers, 
men who had broken the shackles of restraint all 
over the world. That was largely why they were in 
the Mounted; certainly not because of the sixty 
cents a day. And, so, how, even in his bitterness 
of set-awry-authority, could the incident of the tub 
be a heinous crime on their part. 

“By gad!” and the little man popped from his 
chair and paced the verandah, crying inwardly: 
“They’re my boys; I’d like to forgive them and 


EVIL SPIRITS 285 

shoot Carney—damn him! he’s at the bottom of it.” 

The great arrogant sun, supreme in his regal 
gold, had slipped down behind the jagged mountain 
peaks as Carney, on his little buckskin, and the 
blond giant, FritzHerbert, on a bay, swung at a 
lope out of Fort Calbert for a breather over the 
prairie. 

As they rode, almost silently, they suddenly heard 
the shuffling “pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat” of a cayuse, and in 
a little cloud of white dust to the west there grew 
to their eyes the blurred form of a horseman that 
seemed to droop almost to the horn of his saddle. 

“A tired nichie,” FitzHerbert commented; “he 
smells sow-belly frying in the town—he hasn’t 
eaten for a moon, I should say.” 

The dust cloud swirled closer, and Carney’s gray 
eyes picked out the familiar form of Lathy George, 
one of Dan Stewart’s men. The rider yanked his 
cayuse to a stand when they met, almost reeling 
from the saddle in exhaustion. The cayuse spread 
his legs, drooped his head, and the flanks of his 
lean belly pumped as if his lungs were parched. 

“Hello, Bulldog!” then the man looked warily 
at Carney’s companion. 

FitzHerbert saw the look and knew from the 
stranger’s physical shatterment that some vital er¬ 
rand had spurred him; so he touched a heel to his 
bay’s flank and moved slowly along the trail. 

Then the rider of the cayuse in tired, panting 
gasps gave Carney his message. 

“All right, George,” Bulldog commented at the 


286 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


finish; “go to the Victoria, feed your horse, have 
a good supper, get a room and sleep.” 

“What’ll I do, boss, when I wake up—how long’ll 
I sleep?” 

“As long as you like—a week if you want.” 

“What’ll I do then—don’t you need me?” 

“No, play with your toes if you like.” 

Lathy George pulled his reeling cayuse together, 
and pushed on. Carney gave a whistle, and Fitz- 
Herbert, wheeling his bay, turned. 

“I’ve got to go back to town,” Carney said. 

“I’ll go too,” the other volunteered; “this devil¬ 
ish boundlessness is like a painted sky above a 
painted ocean—it gives me the lonely willies.” 

“There’s hell to pay back yonder,” Carney said, 
jerking a thumb over his shoulder. 

“It’s always back there, or over yonder—never 
here when there’s any hell to pay,” FitzHerbert com¬ 
mented dejectedly; “it’s just one long plaintive sab¬ 
bath.” 

“I’ve got to go back to the foothills soon’s I’ve 
got fixed up,” Carney continued. 

“Me, too—if there’s action there.” 

“Hardly, my dear boy; it’s purely a matter of 
diplomacy.” 

“Absolutely, Bulldog; that’s why you’re going. 
You’re going to kiss somebody on both cheeks, pat 
him on the back, and say, ‘Here’s a good cigar for 
you’—you love it. What’s happened?” 

“The Stonies are on the war-path.” 

“Ugly devils—part Sioux. They’re hunters— 


EVIL SPIRITS 287 

blood letters—first cousins to the Kilkenny cats. In 
the rebellion, a few years ago, only for the Wood 
Crees they’d have murdered every white prisoner 
that came into their hands.” 

“Yes, they’re peppery devils. In the Frog Lake 
massacre one of them, Itcka, killed a white man or 
two and was hanged for it.” 

“What started them now?” FitzHerbert asked. 

“Whisky.” 

FitzHerbert stole a glance at Carney’s stolid 
face; then he whistled; Carney’s word had been like 
a gasp of confession, for, undoubtedly, the liquor 
was from the car. 

“How did they make the haul?” he asked. 

“The Stonies have just had their Treaty Pay¬ 
ment, and there’s a new regulation that they may go 
off the reserve at Morley to make their Fall hunt in 
the mountains, at this time; they were on their way, 
under Chief Standing Bear, when they ran into the 
gent we’ve just met and his mates in the Vermillion 
Valley. George was running two loads of whisky up 
to the lumber camps.” 

“Great! that combination—lumberjacks, Stonies, 
and Whisky; it would be as if sheol had opened a 
chute—there’ll be murder.” 

“I know Standing Bear; he made me a blood 
brother of his. I did him a bit of a turn. I was 
coming through the Flathead Valley once, and the 
old fellow had insulted a grizzly. The grizzly 
was peeved, for the Stoney had peppered a couple 
of silly bullets into the brute’s shoulder. I happened 




288 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


to get in a lucky shot and stopped the silver-tip 
when he was about to shampoo old Standing Bear.” 

“Yes, I heard about that—you and your little 
buckskin. Say, Bulldog, that little devil must have 
the pluck of a lion—they say he carried you right 
up to the grizzly, and you pumped him full of 
• 45 ’ s -” 

“That’s just a yarn,” Carney asserted; “but, any¬ 
way, the Chief and I are good friends. I’m going 
to pull out and persuade him to go back to the re¬ 
serve. Jerry Platt has gone down in that direction, 
and you know what the Sergeant is, Fitz—he’ll 
stack up against that tribe alone; if they’re full of 
fire-water, and have been rowing with the lumber¬ 
jacks—their squaws will be along, and you know 
what that means—Jerry stands a mighty good chance 
of being killed. I feel that it will be sort of my 
fault.” 

“It’s rotten to go alone, Bulldog. I’ll get a dozen 
of the fellows, and we’ll play rugby with those devil¬ 
ish nichies if they don’t act like gentlemen.” 

Carney laughed. “If you’d been at Duck Lake 
or Cut Knife you’d know all about that. Your 
bally Remittance Men wouldn’t have a chance, Fitz 
—not a chance. It would be a fight—your hot heads 
would start it—and after the first shot you wouldn’t 
see anything to shoot at; you’d see the red spit of 
their rifles, and hear the singing note of their bul¬ 
lets. These Stonies are hunters; they can outwit 
a big-horn in the mountains; first thing he knows 
of their approach is when he’s bowled over.” 


EVIL SPIRITS 289 

“How are you going to do it then, mister man? 
Go in and get shot up just because you feel that it’s 
your fault?” 

“No, I’m going to try and make good. If I can 
hook up with Jerry Platt we’ll put before them the 
strongest kind of an argument, the only kind they’ll 
listen to. They’ll obey the Police generally, be¬ 
cause they know the ‘Redcoat’ is an agent of the 
Queen, the White Mother who feeds them; but, be¬ 
ing drunk, the young bucks will be hostile—some of 
them will feel like pulling the White Mother’s nose. 
But Standing Bear has got sense and he promised 
me when we were made blood brothers that his 
whole tribe was pledged to me. I’m going down to 
collect—do you see, Fitz?” 

They were riding in to town now, and FitzHer- 
bert made another plea: “Let me go with you, Bull¬ 
dog. I’m petrified with fanning the air with my 
eyes, and nothing doing. I sit here in this damned 
village watching the west wind blow the boulders 
up the street, and the east wind blow them back 
again, till they’re worn to the size of golf balls. 
I’m atrophied; my insides are like an enamelled pot 
from the damned alkaline dust.” 

“Sorry, my dear boy, but I know what would hap¬ 
pen if you went with me. While I’d be holding a 
pow-wow with Standing Bear one of those boozed 
Stonies would spit in your eye, and you’d knock him 
down; then hell would break loose.” 

“You’re generally right, Bulldog, mister some- 
man; none of us have got the cool courage you’ve 


290 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


got. I guess it’s rather (moral cowardice. I’ve 
seen you stand more abuse than a mule-skinner gives 
his mule and not lose caste over it.” He held out 
his big hand, saying: “Good luck, old boy! I rather 
fancy Standing Bear will be back on his reserve or 
this will be good-bye.” 

It was dark when Carney rode out of Fort Cal- 
bert heading for the heavy gloomed line of the 
Vermillions. The little buckskin pricked his ears, 
threw up his head with a playful clamp at the bit, 
and broke into a long graceful lope; beneath them 
the chocolate trail swam by like shadow chasing 
shadow over a mirror. A red-faced moon that had 
come peeping over Fort Calbert, followed the rider, 
traversing the blue upturned prairie above, as if it, 
too, hurried to rebuke with its silent serenity the tur¬ 
bulent ones in the foothills. It cast a mystic, sleepy 
haze over the plain that lay in restful lethargy, 
bathed in an atmosphere so peaceful that Carney’s 
mission seemed but the promptings of a phantas¬ 
magoria. There was a pungent, acrid taint of burn¬ 
ing grass in the sleepy air, and off to the south glinted 
against the horizon the peeping red eyes of a prairie 
fire. They were like the rimmed lights of a shore- 
held city. 

The way was always uphill, the low unperceived 
grade of the prairie uplifting so gradually to the 
foothills, and the buckskin, as if his instinct told him 
that their way was long, broke his lope into the easy 
suffling pace of a cayuse. 

Carney, roused from the reverie into which the 


EVIL SPIRITS 


291 


somnolence of the gentle night had cast him, patted 
the slim neck approvingly. Then his mind slipped 
back into a fairy boat that ferried it across leagues 
of ocean to the land of green hills and oak-hidden 
castles. 

Something of the squalid endeavor ahead bred in 
his mind a distaste for his life of adventure. Was 
it good enough? Danger, the pitting of his wits 
against other wits, carried a savor of excitement 
that was better than remembering. The foolish 
past could only be kept in oblivion by action, by 
strain, by danger, by adventure, by winning out 
against odds; but the thing ahead—drunken, brawl¬ 
ing lumberjacks, and Indians thrust back into primi¬ 
tive savagery because of him, put in his soul a taste 
of the ashes of regret. 

Even the test he was going to put himself to was 
not enough to deaden this suddenly awakened re¬ 
morse. To the blond giant he had minimized the 
danger, the prospect of conflict, but he knew that 
he was playing a game with Fate that the roll of the 
dice would decide. He was going to pit himself 
against the young bucks of the Stonies. They were 
an offshoot of the Sioux; in their veins ran fighting 
blood, the blood of killers; and inflamed by liquor the 
blood would be the blood of ghazis. It would all 
depend upon Standing Bear, for Carney could not 
quit, could not weaken; he must turn them back from 
the valley of the Vermillion, or remain there with 
his face upturned to the sky, and his soul seeking 
the Ferryman at the crossing of the Styx. 




292 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


He had ridden three hours, scarce conscious of 
anything but the mental traverse, when the palpi¬ 
tating beat of hoofs pounding the drum-like turf 
fell upon his ears. From far down the trail to the 
west came a sound that was like the drum of a 
mating pheasant’s wings. 

The trail he rode dipped into a little hollow. 
Here he slipped from the saddle, led the buckskin 
to one side, and dropped the bridle rein over his 
head. Then he took a newspaper from his pocket, 
canopied it into a little gray mound on the trail, 
and, drawing his gun, stepped five paces to one side 
and waited. All this precaution was that he might 
hold converse with the galloping horseman without 
the startling semblance of a hold-up; sometimes the 
too abrupt command to halt meant a pistol shot. 

As the pound of the hoofs neared, the rhythmic 
cadence separated into staccato beats of, “pit-a-pat, 
pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat,” and Carney muttered: “Rather 
like a drunken nichie; he’s riding hell-bent-for- 
leather.” 

Now the racing horseman was close; now he 
loomed against the sky as he topped the farther bank. 
Half-way down the dipping trail the cayuse saw 
the paper mound, and with his prairie bred instinct 
took it for a crouching wolf. With a squealing 
snort he swerved, propped, and his rider, in search 
of equilibrium, shot over his head. As he staggered 
to his feet a strong hand was on his arm, and a 
disagreeable cold circle of steel was touching his 
cheek. 


EVIL SPIRITS 293 

“By gar!” the frightened traveller cried aghast, 
“don’t s’oot me.” 

Carney laughed, and lowering his gun, said: 
“Certainly not, boy—just a precaution, that’s all. 
Where are you going?” 

“I’m goin’ to de Fort, me,” the French half- 
breed replied. “De Stoney nichies an’ de lumber¬ 
jacks is raise hell; by gar! dere’s fine row; dey s’oot 
de Sergeant, Jerry Platt.” 

“Where?” 

“Jus’ by Yellowstone Creek, De Stonies pitch dere 
tepees dere.” 

“Where’s the Sergeant?” 

“I don’t know me. He get de bullet in de shoul¬ 
der, but he swear by le bon Dieu dat he’ll get hes 
man, an’ mak’ de Injun go back to hees reserve. 
He’s hell of brave mans, dat Jerry.” 

“All right, boy,” Carney said; “you ride on to the 
Fort and tell the Superintendent that Bulldog Car¬ 
ney-” 

“Sacre! Bulldog Carney?” The poor breed 
gasped the words much as if the Devil had clapped 
him on a shoulder. 

“Yes; tell him that Bulldog Carney has gone to 
help Jerry Platt put the fear of God into those 
drunken bums. Now pull out.” 

The breed, who had clung to the bridle rein, 
mounted his cayuse, crying, as he clattered away: 
“May de Holy Mudder give you de help, Bulldog, 
dat’s me, Ba’tiste, wish dat.” 





294 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


Then Carney swung to the back of the little buck¬ 
skin, and pushed on to the help of Jerry Platt. 

Dozing in the saddle he rode while the gallant 
horse ate up mile after mile in that steady, shuffling 
trot he had learned from his cold-blooded broth¬ 
ers of the plains. The grade was now steeper; they 
were approaching the foothills that rose at first in 
undulating mounds like a heavy ground swell; 
then the ridges commenced to take shape against 
the sky line, looking like the escarpments of a fort. 

The trail Carney followed wound, as he knew, into 
the Vermillion Valley, at the upper end of which, 
near the gap, the Indians were encamped on Yel¬ 
lowstone Creek. 

The Indians’ clock, the long-handled dipper, had 
swung around the North Star off to Carney’s right, 
and he had tabulated the hours by its sweep. It 
was near morning he knew, for the handle was 
climbing up in the east. 

Then, faintly at first, there carried to his ears 
the droning “tump-tump, tump-tump, tump-tump, 
tump-tump!” of a tom-tom, punctuated at intervals 
by a shrill, high-pitched sing-song of “Hi-yi, hi-yi, 
hi-yi, hi-yi!” 

Carney pulled his buckskin to a halt, his trained 
ear interpreted the well-known time that was beaten 
from the tom-tom—it was the gambling note. That 
was the Indians all over; when drunk to squat on 
the ground in a circle, a blanket between them to 
hide the guessing bean, and one of their number 
beating an exciting tattoo from a skin-covered hoop, 


EVIL SPIRITS 


295 

ceasing his flagellation at times to tighten the sag¬ 
ging skin by the heat of a fire. 

Carney slipped from the buckskin’s back, stripped 
the saddle off, picketed the horse, and stretched 
himself on the turf, muttering, as he drifted into 
quick slumber: “The cold gray light of morning 
is the birth time of the yellow streak—I’ll tackle 
them then.” 

The sun was flicking the upper benches of the 
Vermillion Range when Carney opened his eyes. 
He sat up and watched the golden light leap down 
the mountain side from crag to crag as the fount of 
all this liquid gold climbed majestically the eastern 
sky. As he stood up the buckskin canted to his feet. 
Bulldog laid his cheek against the soft mouse-colored 
nose, and said: “Patsy, old boy, it’s business first 
this morning—we’ll eat afterwards; though you’ve 
had a fair snack of this jolly buffalo grass, I see from 
your tummy.” 

The tom-tom was still troubling the morning air, 
and the crackle of two or three gunshots came down 
the valley. 

As Carney saddled the buckskin he tried to formu¬ 
late a plan. There was nothing to plan about; he 
had no clue to where he might find Platt—that part 
of it was all chance. Failing to locate the Sergeant 
he must go on and play his hand alone against the 
Stonies. 

As he rode, the trail wound along the flat bank of 
a little lake that was like an oval torquoise set in 
platinum and dull gold. Beyond it skirted the lake’s 




296 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


feeder, a rippling stream that threw cascades of 
pearl tints and sapphire as it splashed over and 
against the stubborn rocks. From beyond, on the 
far side, floated down from green fir-clad slopes 
the haunting melody of a French-Canadian song. 
It was like riding into a valley of peace; and just 
over a jutting point was the droning tom-toms. As 
Carney rounded the bend in the trail he could see 
the smoke-stained tepees of the Stonies. 

At that instant the valley was filled with the vocal 
turmoil of yelping, snarling dogs—the pack-dogs 
of the Indians. 

At first Carney thought that he was the incentive 
to this demonstration; but a quick searching look 
discovered a khaki-clad figure on a bay police horse, 
taking a ford of the shallow stream. It was Ser¬ 
geant Jerry Platt, all alone, save for a half-breed 
scout that trailed behind. 

Pandemonium broke loose in the Indian encamp¬ 
ment. Half-naked bucks swarmed in and out among 
the tepees like rabbits in a muskeg; some of them, 
still groggy, pitched headlong over a root, or a 
stone. Many of them raced for their hobbled 
ponies, and clambered to their backs. Two or three 
had rushed from their tepees, Winchester in hand, 
and when they saw the policeman banged at the un¬ 
offending sky in the way of bravado. 

Carney shook up his mount, and at a smart can¬ 
ter reached the Sergeant just as his horse came up 
to the level of the trail, fifty yards short of the 
camp. 


EVIL SPIRITS 297 

Platt’s shoulder had been roughly bandaged by 
the guide, and his left arm was bound across his 
chest in the way of a sling. The Sergeant’s face, 
that yesterday had been the genial merry face of 
Jerry, was drawn and haggard; grim determination 
had buried the boyishness that many had said would 
never leave him. His blue eyes warmed out of their 
cold, tired fixity, and his voice essayed some of the 
old-time recklessness, as he called: “Hello, Bulldog. 
What in the name of lost mavericks are you doing 
here—collecting ?” 

“Came to give you a hand, Jerry.” 

“A hand, Bulldog?” 

“That’s the palaver, Jerry. Somebody ran me 
in the news of this”—he swept an arm toward the 
tepees—“and I’ve ridden all night to help bust this 
hellery. Heard on the trail you’d got pinked.” 

“Not much—just through the flesh. A couple of 
drunken lumberjacks potted me from cover. I’ve 
been over at the Company’s shacks, but I’m pretty 
sure they’ve taken cover with the Indians. I’ll get 
them if they’re here. But I’ve got to herd these 
bronco-headed bucks back to the reserve.” 

“They’ll put up an argument, Sergeant.” 

“I expect it; but it’s got to be done. They’ll go 
back, or Corporal McBane will get a promotion— 
he’s next in line to Jerry Platt.” 

“Good stuff, Jerry, I’ll-” 

“Pss-s-ing!” 

Bulldog’s statement of what he would do was cut 
short by the whining moan of a bullet cutting the 




BULLDOG CARNEY 


298 

air above their heads. A little cloud of white smoke 
was spiraling up from the door of a teepee. 

“That’s bluff,” Jerry grunted. 

“We’ve got to move in, Jerry—if we hesitate, 
after that, they’ll buzz like flies. If you start kick¬ 
ing an Indian off the lot keep him moving. I’m un¬ 
der your command; I’ve sworn myself in, a special; 
but I know Standing Bear well, and if you’ll allow 
it, I’ll make a pow-wow. But I’m in it to the fin¬ 
ish, boy.” 

“Thanks, Bulldog”—they were moving along at 
a steady walk of the horses toward the tepees— 
“but you know our way—you’ve got to stand a lot of 
dirt; if you don’t, Bulldog, and start anything, you’ll 
make me wish you hadn’t come. It’s better to get 
wiped out than be known as having lost our heads. 
D’you get it?” 

“I’m on, Jerry.” 

Carney knew Standing Bear’s tepee; it was larger 
than the others; on its moose-skin cover was painted 
his caste mark, something meant to represent a huge¬ 
toothed grizzly. 

But everything animate in the camp was now fo¬ 
cused on their advent. The old men of wisdom, 
the half-naked bucks, squaws, dogs, ponies—it was 
a shifting, interminably twisting kaleidoscope of 
gaudy, draggled, vociferous creatures. 

A little dry laugh issued from Jerry’s lips, and he 
grunted: “Some circus, Bulldog. Keep an eye 
skinned that those two skulking Frenchmen don’t 
slip from a tepee.” 


EVIL SPIRITS 


299 


Standing Bear stood in front of his tepee. He 
was a big fine-looking Indian. Over his strong 
Sioux-like features hovered a half-drunken gravity. 
In one hand he held an eagle’s wing, token of chief¬ 
tainship, and the other hand rested suggestively 
upon the butt of a .45 revolver. 

Carney knew enough Stoney to make himself un¬ 
derstood, for he had hunted much with the tribe. 

“Ho, Chief of the mighty hunters,” he greeted. 

“Why does the Redcoat come?” and Standing 
Bear indicated the Sergeant with a sweep of the 
eagle wing. 

“We come as friends to Chief Standing Bear,” 
Carney answered. 

“Huh! the talk is good. The trail is open: now 
you may pass.” 

“Not so, Chief,” Carney answered softly. “Harm 
has been done. Two white men, with evil in their 
hearts against the police of the Great White Mother, 
whose children the Stonies are, have wounded one 
of her Redcoat soldiers; and also the White Mother 
has sent a message by her Redcoat that Standing 
Bear is to take his braves back to the reserve.” 

At this the bucks, who had been listening impa¬ 
tiently, broke into a clamor of defiance; the high- 
pitched battle-cry of “hi-yi, yi-yi, yi-hi!” rose from 
fifty throats. The mounted braves swirled their 
ponies, driving them with quirt and heel in a mad 
pony war-dance. Half-a-dozen times the lean rac¬ 
ing cayuses bumped into the mounts of the two white 
men. 



300 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


Running Antelope, a Stoney whose always evil 
face had been made horrible by the sweep of a bear’s 
claws, raced his pony, chest on, against the buck¬ 
skin, thrust his ugly visage almost into Carney’s 
face, and spat. 

Bulldog wiped it off with the barrel of his gun, 
then dropped the gun back into its holster, saying 
quietly: “Some day, Running Antelope, I’ll cover 
that stain with your blood.” 

The Sergeant sat as stolid as a bronze statue. 

The squaws stood in groups, either side the Chief’s 
tepee, and hurled foul epithets at the two white men. 
Little copper-skinned imps threw handfuls of sand, 
and gravel, and bits of turf. 

The dogs howled and snapped as they sulked 
amongst their red masters. 

“We will not go back to the reserve, Bulldog,” 
the Chief said with solemn dignity, and held the 
eagle wing above his head; “it is the time of our hunt, 
and a new treaty has been made that we go to the 
hunt when the payment is made. Of the two pale 
faces that have done evil I know not.” 

“They are here in the tepees,” Bulldog declared. 

“The tepees are the homes of my tribe, and what 
is there is there. Go back while the trail is open, 
Bulldog, you and the Redcoat; my braves may do 
harm if you remain.” 

“Chief, we are blood brothers—was it not so 
spoken?” 

“Standing Bear has said that it is so, Bulldog.” 

“And Standing Bear said that when his white 


EVIL SPIRITS 301 

brother asked a gift Standing Bear would hear the 
words of his brother.” 

‘‘Standing Bear said that, Bulldog.” 

“Then, Chief, Bulldog asks the favor, not for him¬ 
self, but for the good of Standing Bear and his 
Braves.” 

“What asks the Bulldog of Standing Bear?” 

“That he give into the hand of the White 
Mother’s Redcoat the two moneas, the Frenchmen; 
and that he strike the tepees and command the 
squaws to load them on the travois, and lead the 
braves back to the reserve.” 

Running Antelope pushed himself between Carney 
and the Chief, and in rapid, fierce language de¬ 
nounced this request to Standing Bear. 

A ringing whoop of approval from the bucks 
I greeted Antelope’s harrangue. 

“My braves will not go back to the reserve, Bull¬ 
dog,” the Chief declared. 

“Is Standing Bear Chief of the Stonies?” Carney 
asked; “or is he an old outcast buffalo bull—and 
does the herd follow Running Antelope?” 

The Chief’s face twisted with the shock of this 
thrust, and Running Antelope scowled and flashed 
a hunting knife from his belt. 

“If Standing Bear is Chief of the Stonies, the 
White Mother’s Redcoat asks him to deliver the 
two evil moneas ” Carney added. 

Standing Bear seemed to waver; his yellow- 
streaked black-pointed eyes swept back and forth 




802 BULLDOG CARNEY 

from the faces of the white men to the faces of the 
braves. 

In a few rapid words Carney explained to Ser¬ 
geant Platt the situation, saying: “Now is the test, 
Jerry. We’ve got to act. I’ve a hunch the two 
men you want are in that old blackguard’s tepee. 
Shall I carry out something I mean to do?” 

“Don’t strike an Indian, Bulldog; don’t wound 
one: anything else goes. If they start shooting, 
go to it—then we’ll fight to the finish.” 

The Sergeant pulled out his watch, saying: “Give 
them five minutes to strike the tepees, that may cow 
them. We’ve got to keep going.” 

Standing Bear saw the watch, and asked: 
“What medicine does the Redcoat make?” 

Carney explained that the Sergeant gave him five 
minutes to strike his tepee as a sign to the others. 

And if Standing Bear says that talk is not good 
talk, that a Chief of the Stonies is not a dog to be 
driven from his hunting, what will the Redcoat do?” 
the Chief asked haughtily. 

But Carney simply answered: “Bulldog is the 
friend of Standing Bear, his blood brother, but at 
the end of five minutes Bulldog and the White Moth¬ 
er’s soldier will lead the Stonies back to the reserve.” 

A quiet followed this; the dreadful heaviness of 
a sudden stilling of the tumult, for the Chief, rais¬ 
ing his eagle wing, had commanded silence. 

“Standing Bear will wait to see the medicine mak¬ 
ing of the Redcoat,” he said to Carney. 

One minute, two minutes, three minutes, four 


EVIL SPIRITS 303 

minutes ; the two men sat their horses facing the sul¬ 
len redskins. A thrilling exhilaration was tingling 
the nerves of Carney; a test such as this lifted him. 
And Jerry, as brave as Bulldog, sat throned on his 
duty, waiting, patient—but it must be. 

“The five minutes are up,” he said, quietly. 

Carney seemed toying with his lariat idly as he 
answered: “Put your watch back in your pocket, 
Jerry, and command, in the Queen’s name, Standing 
Bear to strike his tepee. The authority game, old 
boy. I’ll interpret, and if he doesn’t obey I’m go¬ 
ing to pull his shack down. Does that go?” 

“It does, and the Lord be with us.” 

Jerry dropped the watch dramatically into his 
pocket, raised his voice in solemn declamation, and 
Carney*interpreted the command. 

The Chief seemed to waver; his eyes were shifty, 
like the eyes of a wolf that hesitates between a 
charge and a skulk-away. 

“Speak,” Carney commanded: “tell your braves 
to strike their tepees.” 

“Go back on the trail, Bulldog.” 

Standing Bear’s words were cut short by the zipp 
of a rope; from Carney’s right hand the lariat 
floated up like the loosening coils of a snake; the 
noose settled down over the key-pole, and at a pull 
of the rein the little buckskin raced backward, and 
the tepee collapsed to earth like a pricked balloon. 

This extraordinary, unlooked-for event had the 
effect of a sudden vivid shaft of lightning from out 
a troubled sky. Half paralyzed the Indians stood in 




304f 


BULLDOG CABNEY 


gasping suspense, and into the Chief’s clever brain 
flashed the knowledge that all his bluff had failed, 
that he must yield or take the awful consequence of 
thrusting his little tribe into a war with the great 
nation of the palefaces; he must yield or kill, and to 
kill a Redcoat on duty, or even Bulldog, a paleface 
who had not struck a tribesman, meant the dreaded 
punishment of hanging. 

The god of chance took the matter out of his 
hands. 

From the entangling folds of the skin tepee two 
swarthy, flannel-shirted white men wriggled like 
badgers escaping from a hole, and stood up gazing 
about in bewilderment. One of them had drawn a 
gun, and in the hand of the other was a vicious 
knife. 

Sergeant Jerry drew a pair of handcuffs from a 
pocket, and pushed his bay forward to cut off the 
retreat of the Frenchmen, commanding: “You are 
under arrest—hands up!” 

As he spoke, with an ugly oath the man with the 
gun fired. The report was echoed by the crack of 
Carney’s gun and the Frenchman’s hand dropped to 
his side, his pistol clattering to earth. 

Sergeant Jerry threw the handcuffs to the man 
with the knife, saying, sharply: “Shackle yourself 
by the right wrist to the left wrist of your com¬ 
panion.” 

The man hesitated, sweeping with his vicious eyes 
the band of cowed Indians. 

One look at the gun in Carney’s hands and mutter- 


EVIL SPIRITS 305 

mg: “Sacre! dem damn Injuns is coward dogs!” he 
picked up the chained rings and snapped them on 
his mate’s wrists and his own. 

Carney turned to Standing Bear, who stood petri¬ 
fied by the rapidity of events. 

“Chief,” he said, “with these white outcasts the 
way is different, they are evil; the Indians are chil¬ 
dren of the White Mother.” 

The wily old Chief quickly repudiated the two 
Frenchmen; he could see that the policeman and 
Bulldog were not to be bluffed. 

“If the two moneas have broken the law, take 
them,” he said magnanimously; “but tell the Redcoat 
that Standing Bear and his tribe will go from here 
up into the hills for the hunt, for to return to the 
reserve would bring hunger to the Stonies when the 
white rain lies on the ground. Ask the Redcoat to 
say that this is good, that we may go quickly, and 
the evil be at an end.” 

Carney conveyed this to Jerry. It was perhaps 
the better way, he advised, for the breaking up 
of the hunt, during which they laid in a stock of 
meat for the winter, and skins and furs, would be 
a distinct hardship. 

“You can take the prisoners in, Sergeant,” Car¬ 
ney said, “and I’ll stay with Standing Bear till 
they’re up in the mountains away from the lumber¬ 
jacks.” 

“They must destroy any whisky they have,” Jerry 
declared. 

This the Chief agreed to do. 







306 


BULLDOG CARNEY 


In half an hour the tepees were all down, packed 
on the poled travois, blankets and bundles were 
strapped to the backs of the dogs, and in a strug¬ 
gling line the Stonies were heading for the hills. 

Toward the east the two Frenchmen, linked to¬ 
gether, plodded sullenly over the trail, and behind 
them rode Sergeant Jerry and his half-breed scout. 











































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